The Other Rookie
by Louise-Parrison
Summary: Maria Martin was Jessica's newest associate at Pearson Hardman, she is very good at her job but a confusing relationship with one of her bosses might make her working life way more complicated and exciting. Initially they just wanted to have fun without any feelings attached to it, but two complicated beings are meant to find love and solace with each other.
1. Chapter 1

Maria Martin was a very beautiful and young woman, her beauty was enough to turn heads of any gender. A 5'10 talk woman with a gorgeous physique and an angel-like face could mislead the ones who thought she wasn't smart as hell. Her tanned white skin and straight black hair contrasted perfectly with her blue eyes. Her beauty actually helped her to pay Harvard's fees when she made a great amount of money modeling, she almost ended up being a professional model but realized the in 40 years time she would be able to still be a lawyer, but as a model, she would be completely forgotten, so she quit.

The downside of being so beautiful was that people labeled her either as a shallow person or as a dimwitted one, she was none of this. Well, she could be shallow from time to time. And, as a lawyer, men always thought that she wasn't capable of being cunning or good at her job.

She ended up turning men's labels about her into a good thing, after a crazy bet with a guy she ended up studying more than anyone and graduated first in Harvard Law School and no idiotic guy could take that away from her. And the fact she could easily seduce anyone into doing what she wanted was really helpful when being a lawyer.

Her great looks actually helped her a lot, especially when she wanted to pick some random stranger at a random bar to have some fun whenever she wanted to have fun without any strings attached to it.

Maria woke up tangled in masculine arms and realized that maybe she drank more than she should have last night. She didn't give a damn about her sexual history, women who like sex are sluts but men who like sex are heroes, that is completely wrong and her life goal was proving this and promoting sexual liberation by having sex with as many guys as she could. She got free of the guy's arms and woke him up so that she would be able to get ready for the day and rid of him. No need to care about one nightstand and be all touchy-feely about it.

Though the man in question was really hot, he looked around his later 30's and she liked them older like this. He had a brown hair that was carefully combed and gelled, at least it used to be before her hands messed it up, and his suit looked really expensive, she would bet her life that he was a lawyer, a banker on any other kind of profession that worked in Manhattan and drank 30 cups of coffee per day. Even though she also was a professional of this kind.

" Morning." The man said in a sleepy daze. She had to admit that she hit the jackpot with this one, he was one of the hottest guys she had ever been with. Something about him emanated power and confidence, she found it scary and sexy at the same time.

" Morning." She said while looking for her clothes around her apartment " Do you happen to know where are my panties ?"

" They were torn apart last night." He said with a smirk that clearly showed that he was proud of himself. She knew that he would be a proud dude, the three-piece suit thrown on the floor yelled that.

" Look, I really need you to leave. Today is a huge and very important day for me and, well, bye." She said quickly while running around to find her watch.

" And that's it ?"

" Do you want me to cry and beg you to stay forever because I love and wanna marry you? " She asked with a raised eyebrow.

" Usually girls react that way after having a long night of sex with me. Though I like your approach." He said cockily and made her laugh at him.

"Your humbleness attracts them, I'm sure. But I don't remember anything from last night, I was shitfaced drunk." She said heading inside of the shower " Excuse me, what is your name again?" She asked him.

" Do you need help remembering ?" He asked wiggling his eyebrows and she realized how hot he actually was.

" Nope, I have a meeting at 9 am and I can't go to a meeting without a shower."

" It's 6 am, and I believe that saving water helps the world. "

" I like chaos, why would I save the world?" She said with a mischievous smirk and kissed his neck, clearly changing her mind about making him leave ASAP.

Maria had a job interview at Pearson Hardman, she was looking for a firm to work on since she just graduated from Harvard and had no idea about what to do. She realized that being a corporate lawyer would be better than a judge since her progress would depend on her and not of some votes. She was very sought after by many firms since she graduated at first in her class and had a vast resumé.

" Good morning, Maria. Sorry for the delay." Jessica Pearson said. Maria was a huge fan of her work, a strong woman who accomplished all of this in such a short amount of time deserved to be admired.

" It's alright and completely understandable." Maria said with a smile, she was nervous since Pearson Hardman was one of the best firms in New York and was the one offering the best salary.

" Tell me more about yourself." Jessica told her, it felt like the hardest question ever. Maria was ready to say anything about any law, but talking about her was something she never thought about.

" I was first in my class because I always did what I had to do quickly in order to do more, this showed me that this approach is successful and can help me in my career. So, you can give me any task that you want that I will do it in the best and fastest way I can.

" You were a model before, do you believe that it will help you as a lawyer?"

" Modeling is about being following a standard that is unknown for many, it is beguiling and scary at the same time, modeling also taught me a lot about body language and how to express myself. I believe that it helps a lot and makes people respect me either by loving me or by fearing me."

" You are Machiavellian. I like it."

" I would rather be known as a reader of Sun Tsu, but if Machiavelli gives me this job I can quote the whole book."

" What The Prince has to do with the definition of Modern State?"

" That's a tricky question, the definition of Modern State is not presented by the book but it is the first time an author uses the name State in any book. It helped to create the concept but didn't actually give a real and detailed definition. The Prince is a guide to absolutist monarchs, it is not democratic at all."

" You start a week from Monday, you just need to sign here." Jessica gave her a document that had her name and documentation written down already.

" You had this contract ready before the interview. " Maria asked wide-eyed.

" You were the first in the class and one of the five girls of at least 40 students. I had a feeling that I would like you. And I have to hire you in order to actually prove that you really know these 5 languages you mentioned in your resumé." Jessica said with a smile.

Maria left the interview feeling beyond herself, she finally got a job and a hell good one where she had the potential to grow into her career. This actually called for a celebration and she knew just who to call, one of her best friends here in New York: Rachel Zane, aka the one who presented her to Jessica and she would in debt for her whole life after this moment.

" Rachel." She said sadly on the phone, with a cracking voice that sounded like she had been crying.

" I know you are lying, I saw your working contract signed. Congratulations, and before you say it, yes, we have to celebrate. I don't know how you handle being such a party animal."

" It is a heavy crown but I can handle it, being the party queen has its perks." Maria said with a huge smile on her face and choose a place to go for drinks with her friend.

Monday came and so did Maria's first-day work. She had to get up at 5 am to hit the gym and still have time to dress up for work, it was fine for now since she slept really early yesterday. Her apartment was located two blocks away from the firm, she took 5 minutes to get there. She chose a dark green dress with elegant pointy shoes and a black pantyhose, she applied some eyeliner and mascara and choose some nude lipstick. The dress hugged her curves in an almost x-rated way but it was knee-high and with the stockings it looked really professional, bringing out her eyes. She chose to leave her hair in it's usually straight style.

She was received by Rachel who was waiting for her and another associate named Michael Ross to present the firm to the newbies.

" God, you're finally here. The newbie douche hit on me already." Rachel told her loud and clear so that Mike could hear. " The firm operates on a chain of command model. Harvey's your commanding officer. However, Louis Litt, he oversees all associates, so you'll also answer to him." She told Mike and looked at Maria before telling her:" Maria, Jessica is your commanding officer. It's unusual someone is her position having an associate but you still answer to Harvey and Louis." Rachel said in a more friendly manner. The tour continued and she finally showed them their cubicles.

The other associates' heads turned to take a better look at the newbies, Mike was the classic white Harvard guy that everyone expected but Maria was the hottest girl some of them had ever seen. Some guys ogled with open-mouthed facial expressions, she gave them her best flirty smirk and knew that from now on those idiots were hooked and working with them would be easy since most of them looked like they would do anything she asked for.

" Jessica wants to see you." A red-haired said and winked at her " And, I'm Donna, it's good having another girl to reduce the testosterone here, welcome."

" Thank you, Donna. " Maria said and walked to the same office she was interviewing before.

Maria had to wait before going inside of Jessica's office, a man was talking to her. But what actually surprised her was that said man was "smoking hot dude" from her latest nightstand. She had to hide from him, so when he turned to leave the room she threw herself on the floor, near Michael Ross who was walking by.

" What happened? Are you okay ?"

" Ok, I just let my pen fall down." She tried to say but it was completely unconvincing since the pen was right inside of the notebook she was carrying. " False alarm, the pen did not fall down. Thank you for the concern, Michael. "

" Call me Mike, please. And why are you still on the floor."

" Okay, I'm hiding from somebody."

" Who?"

" Rachel, she wants to see Kitty today but we got to work till past 9."

" You have a cat ?"

" Yeah. But Kitty is also her name." She said this while getting up and seeing that hot dude was not inside of Jessica's office anymore. " Bye, gotta go, duty calls. "

" Good morning." Maria said professionally.

" Morning, Maria. It's uncommon for someone in my position to hire someone as an associate so I will rotate your duties between Louis Litt and Harvy Specter depending on the case. You answer all three of us. Your first assignment is with Harvey Specter, he's got a pro-bono Sexual Harassment case and I want you to follow him and the Mike kid around to make sure that everything goes smoothly, I already told him of your presence and he will be expecting you inside of his office." Jessica said handing her a folder.

"Thank you." Maria said with an excited smile.

" Hi, Donna, can you please tell me where can I find Harvey Space, Spice, Spect or something ?" She asked the redheaded woman.

" I am Harvey SPECTER's secretary, I will announce you and then you can come on in." Donna told her with a smile.

" Thank you."

She recognized Mike standing there and talking while Donna told Mr. Specter about her presence there. The little or not so little problem was that her new boss was the hot dude she had unforgettable wild sex with, just her luck. She would act dumb and professional as if she never saw him before, surely he would do the same.

" Good Morning, Mr. Specter. Jessica told me that you requested my presence."

" I didn't request it, more likely she made me take you under my wing. Call me Harvey." He said with a forced smile before looking up and it hit him, she was his last weekend's hookup. She was right in front of him waiting for orders, wearing stockings and, for his anger, lying about not knowing him. " You are going to work at the pro bono case with Mike, let's hope his great memory makes up for your bad one."

" I forgot something ?" She decided to stick with her plan of acting dumb in hopes that he would be professional about what happened.

" Just one night and one morning of steamy sex with me. By the look on your face, you didn't forget but you wanted to lie to me. Do not lie to me, I know that you have tons of potential since Jessica almost shoved you down my throat so let's just act professional about this." He said as a matter of fact.

" I completely agree. I wasn't lying, I was simply trying to be professional while you came around with Rousseau's Social Contract for me to sign and Jessica told me that YOU were the one responsible for the pro bono case, not me and Mike."

" And you will not tell her for the sake of professionalism, just like I will try really hard to ignore the fact that this dress clings in you in a pornographic manner and maybe will make me forget about professionalism and tell her about our sexual encounters."

" I will ignore the fact that I am about to become a murderer for the sake of professionalism, have a good day. " She said angrily and stormed out.

" You and Harvey? You would be good for him, you have a fire." Donna told her after she left her office.

" I don't do this relationship thing, it was supposed to be a one time kind of thing, I didn't know that he would be my goddamn boss. And let's hope my fire doesn't get me fired." Maria said smacking her head with the file.

" Was he good?" Donna asked full of curiosity.

" Best sex of my life. But don't ever tell his this, I have a hard to please reputation to keep and he would grow more big-headed than before. I will give you more info later." She sent a wink to the redhaired and left to look for Mike.

" Guess what?" She asked the blonde with a small smile.

" What?"

" I am into the pro bono case with you. I'm under Harvey's wig this time."

" Good, I just scheduled a meeting with her to know the full story."

" Great, let me just get an engagement letter ready for her to sign and let's go." She told him with a smile and went to her cubicle.

" What is an engagement letter ?"

" You are joking, right. It's simply a piece of paper that will keep her from being able to use us. You said you were in the same class as me in Harvard, why didn't I ever heard about a Mike Ross ?"

" Okay. Please, don't say it to anybody, not even Rachel or your cat." Mike told her the whole story about how he ended up there. Maria understood completely this situation.

" Don't you see that half of your life was screwed up because of this Trevor douche ?" Maria told Mike after hearing his tale.

" He was my friend."

" Get rid of this Trevor douche it is for your own good. And come on, modernity offers better drugs, cigarettes, sex, soda, chocolate. Now, enough of the meaningful conversation, let's go look for our client."

The duo went to a park, where they secured a meeting with their client: Nancy. She was a beautiful brunette and had a calm demeanor about her.

" Nancy?" Maria asked the woman while Mike paid for the taxi driver.

" Maria and Mike ?"

" Yeah, hi." Mike said sitting down next to Maria on a bench.

" You are kids." She said with a smile.

" We are grown-ups." Maria said with a laugh.

" You guys are so skinny. Have a grape."

And Nancy told them her story, about how that nasty CEO tried to coerce her into having sex with his nasty ass. She needed the job because she was recently widowed and had a kid to raise and that made her handle all this crap before suing him.

" I am hungry as hell." Maria commented.

" Let's eat some hotdogs before going back to the firm, meanwhile we can discuss our course of action in this case." Mike invited her

" Perfect."

They went to have some hotdogs near the firm and discuss the case.

" Clearly an employee will not testify against their own CEO, he can snap his fingers and fire them in one second." Maria commented with Mike while taking a bite of her hotdog.

" Defence sent over the investigation files as a courtesy."

" Nope, it's not a courtesy. They simply sent what they want us to look into. All the info contained in those papers is useless for the case, they would never send something incriminating about some powerful CEO who's able to pay for the best lawyers money can afford." Maria told Mike.

" Thank God I'm one of those lawyers. Not their defense lawyer, but the best lawyer money could afford. Even though she's pro bono." Harvey appeared out of nowhere and joined their conversation to Maria's annoyance, she wanted to stay away from him as much as possible.

" And the humblest lawyer either. And the fact that she's pro bono is what made you throw the case in the hands of newborns? " Maria asked rolled her eyes.

" I wouldn't let you make some crazy shit that jeopardizes my reputation as the best closer of New York."

" So you care about us enough to not let us being shamed for doing an awful job in our first case ?" Mike asked with a small smile. Harvey asked for a hotdog and was chewing it at this point

" Who cares if he cares ?" Maria asked rolling her eyes again " She's a great person who deserves a great job from us, so let's do it"

" Don't get emotionally attached to a client like this." Harvey said with a mouthful.

" This woman had her life ripped apart and you don't even care ?" Mike asked his boss.

" I'm not about caring, I'm about winning." Harvey said in his usual conceited manner.

" Why can't you be about both ?" Maria asked completely disgusted by him eating with his mouth full.

" I'd explain it to you but then I'd have to care about you both."

" Right." Mike said in an unconvinced tone and went on to check the lock of his bike. Harvey had to mock him for it before the three of them went back to the firm.

" So what do you suggest we do ?" Maria asked impatiently, she wanted to solve this case properly.

" Think. If he's done it once..." Harvey hinted at the duo.

" He's done it before." Mike completed.

" And if the people who work for him right now won't testify against him..." Harvey hinted again, this time looking at Maria.

" Someone who used to work for him might. But that's exactly what we thought. " She told with the senior lawyer

" Then why did you asked for my help?" Harvey asked Mike.

" I don't know how to fill out a subpoena." Mike said ashamed.

" I can help you with that." Maria said with a kind smile, after knowing his story she actually liked him a lot.

" After that don't you want her to show you how to wipe your ass? 'Cause you should already know both of those things." Harvey sarcastically commented.

" You're so cute." Maria commented with a smile.

" Are you hitting on me ?" Mike asked with a hopeful and dreamy look on his face while Harvey got a little angry, it wasn't jealousy but the thought of the hottest girl he'd ever been with flirting with his puppy was very disturbing.

" Hell no, my pick up lines are way better than this. And if I wanted to seduce you I wouldn't need that much. You are as cute as a teddy bear and I would never hit on a teddy bear." She pinched Mike's cheeks in a playful manner.

"Did you at least remembered about making her sign an engagement letter."

" Of course we did." Mike said almost offended.

" Maria was the one who knew it, you simply agreed." Harvey commented.

" You'll never know." Maria defended Mike.

" Now get your skinny tie and your skinny figure out of my face and get back to work." Harvey said harshly.

" Ouch, that was harsh." Donna told the boss.

After they got the subpoena ready and all the necessary paperwork done, Mike was getting his stuff ready to leave.

" Mike. What are you doing?" Maria asked him from her cubicle that was adjacent to Mike's.

" Um, it's 6:30, I'm going home."

" We are rookies associates, we can't leave before 9 in our first week otherwise we will be gone before our first month. Rachel told me all about it." Maria told him, who sat down dejectedly.

" You're friends with Rachel?"

" She's my best friend here in the US, we studied for the SATs together and she really supported me when I first came to this completely different country."

" Aren't you American? You look like an American and have no accent, I could never guess."

" I'm Brazilian." She said as a matter of fact "Do you think Maria Martin is an American name ?"

" Thinking about it, no. But still, I'd never guess."

" You like Rachel."

" No. I don't." Mike said a little too quickly and nervously.

" It wasn't a question. I think you guys would look great together." Maria said with a small smile " She has a special animosity towards you."

" And I'm supposed to be happy about her disliking me ?"

" Yes, she dislikes you because it's too early to develop feelings and the firm environment isn't the best place to date." Maria said rationally.

" You're good at reading people."

" I am good at everything."

" You were condemning Harvey about being a show-off but here you are."

" He's a man, have you ever seen a perfect man other than Chris Evans or Richard Gere? No. So no man can be perfect."

" That's unfair to my gender."

" I would say it was unfair if your gender didn't scratch their balls and catcall girls."

" That's true."

" And since you agree with me and I'm right, you're right. You're now officially my friend."

" Cool. Friends." He shook hands with her and they went back to work to leave at 9.

Maria finally got home, Kitty faithfully waited for her at the door and purred loudly after seeing her for the first time. She was a huge Maine Coon that Maria adopted after she went to a shelter. Kitty, who was a tiny kitty at that point, needed some expensive surgery that nobody wanted to afford. Maria fell in love with that furball, paid for the surgery and adopted the cat. That cat ended up being her baby and the light of her life, coming back home for that annoying and perfect ball of fluff was the best feeling ever.

" Hello, my sweet baby girl." She said with a high pitched voice while she scratched the cat.

Martin called her parents, who lived in Brazil and told them all about her first day of work at the firm. It was around midnight when she hung up and went to sleep. She went to the USA to be a model after graduating from high school at 16, she always spent her vacations with her family but really missed her family. Kitty was one of the things that kept her sane without her mom and dad.

Maria woke up feeling really good and realized that it was only one day before her first trial, she needed to pass a great impression to everyone, including Harvey if she wanted to be able to step a foot inside of the courtroom.

" Er, Devlin McGregor's fighting the subpoena, they filed a motion to dismiss the case based on our lack of evidence." Mike told her as soon as she got in her cubicle, handling her the files.

" I know, it's actually good."

" What do you mean ?" Mike asked his colleague wide-eyed.

" She meant to say that they don't want to hand over the files because you pressed where it hurts, you're looking in the right place. Did you think they wouldn't fight back?" Harvey appeared out of nowhere and explained Maria's line of thought.

" Well, I... Now that you mention it." Mike said embarrassed.

"Oh. My bad. I keep forgetting you don't actually know anything." Harvey told the male associate. " And, yes, I know that you told your story to her, she did the subpoena. The idea is you make a move, they make a move. You go back and forth until one of you wins. And I'm explaining this both of you guys. Maria is also a case virgin. "

"Okay, what if they win the motion and the case gets dismissed?

"Then we suck and aren't as good as we think we are. We should just give up living if it happens in a pro bono. It's our first time, after all, hurts at first but we get the hang of it till it feels good. " Maria said sarcastically.

" I like her." Harvey said with a small smile while Mike gave them a sarcastic laugh.

"We're asking to look at private files without any evidence of our assertion." Maria said as matter of fact.

"Yeah, but the only way we can find the evidence is to look at those files." Mike told her.

"A rickety argument." Maria commented.

"But it's their precedent." Mike told her.

"Let's go see if we can find one. Get ready to pull an allnighter today, we have big ass research to do. Research is as much art as science so we're gonna look at privacy and harassment law. See if we can find a combination of cases to make an argument. I'll take privacy." Maria commented while they walked to the research level.

" I'll take the harassment law."

" That'll take a while. We're gonna need dinner." Maria told him.

"Chinese." Mike suggested

"No. I can afford Chinese on my own, this is on the firm. I want sushi. I read the benefits we get by working here." Maria said with a laugh.

" Rachel is too smart to be a paralegal." Mike told her while they ate sushi and researched.

"Yes. She is."

" Why?"

" She is smart and more capable than both of us together. She simply doesn't do tests well."

"Why ?"

"She is a perfectionist, doesn't trust her own instincts when answering and keeps changing her right answers into wrong ones. She gets nervous."

And, for the millionth time today, Harvey popped out of nowhere and made another appearance, much to Maria's annoyance.

"Where are you at with the research for tomorrow's hearing?"

"Great." Maria lied.

"Er, nothing yet."

"Shut up, Mike" She hissed to her friend.

"You say you care about the client but if you keep playing footsie with your 'cute' friend instead of finding me an argument, the client's gonna lose." He directed this one to Maria and walked away before saying that he didn't want to lose.

" Oh. Look. It's no use, okay? Their investigation's by the book, we look like the bad guys coming in putting them under duress." Mike told Maria dejectedly.

" Exactly."

" What? "

" You said they did it by the book and we're putting them under duress. Look at this baby here." Maria showed the files to Mike and they both smiled. "If we win this thing, we have to celebrate with tons of alcohol this weekend. Don't worry, Rachel will be there to make sure I don't die."

Next morning, Maria and Mike handled the result of their research to Harvey, who was impressed by their findings.

Next morning, they handled their finding to their boss before he went to the courtroom

"This is good. We're gonna have some fun." Harvey told the pair.

"We?" Maria asked with a raised eyebrow, incredulous .

"We? W-, I get to go?" Mike said like a lost puppy as always.

"You didn't think I'd let you come along?" Harvey asked them.

"Nope." Maria answered.

"Good instinct, I wasn't. But then I thought it'd be cruel not to let you witness my greatness." Harvey told them opening one of the car's rear doors. He looked at Maria as if waiting for something while she shot him a confused look, he didn't move and was still holding the door open.

" What?" Maria asked him completely confused.

" Get in." Harvey commanded

"Okay." She said quickly and got in.

"Okay, can I go get my bag?" Mike asked while Harvey got inside of the car.

"No."

"You're a true giver." Mike said sarcastically as he went to get in the car.

"Other side." Harvey said and closed the door.

"Okay." Mike had to go to the other side of the car.

" Way to go, next time make a 'I slept with my boss' sign to put over my head." Maria whispered to Harvey quickly while Mike was out, getting to the other side of the car. Mike was so fast that Harvey had no time to answer her and simply scoffed her pulling a face while she rolled her eyes.

The trial was as smooth as it could be. Maria hated to knowledge it but Harvey nailed it, he was an amazing lawyer and his defense was the cherry on top to their research.

"That was awesome." Mike told Harvey after the trial.

"It was your argument. I just framed it in a way that humanized the situation and brightened all of our afternoons." Harvey said as smug as ever.

"I feel like Michael Corleone in that scene where that fat guy teaches him how to shoot that gun." Maria commented with small smirk.

"Are you saying that I'm the fat guy? 'Cause I'm not the fat guy."

" I know a great personal trainer that can help you to get in shape." Maria said with a small laugh while Harvey looked at her with an angry look.

"Do you know what his name was?" Mike asked them

"Yeah."

"Cordoza." Maria lied.

"Clemenza." Harvey corrected her, knowing that she already knew the answer but followed Mike's lead to test him.

" She knew that, she was just testing to see if you knew it." Mike said as a matter of fact while they walked out of the courtroom.

" I knew that you knew that I knew." Harvey shot back feeling more proud of himself than before.

And the files did arrive quickly, much to their dismay.

" Maria, the files are in the conference room C. And Friday we need to go to this bar you mentioned."

"Yeees." Maria said excited and they made some small talk while Rachel showed her the conference room, Mike was there already. "Nooo" she said when she saw the amount of paper sent.

"Looks like we have another all-nighter here." Maria sighed

" We need pizza today to survive." Mike told her

" Uhum, and milkshake." Maria said opening a box full of files.

They spent the whole night going through all the files when Mike found that the name of an employee was missing from a dismissal made in March of 2005. They tried to find it everywhere but looks like the company wanted to hide it.

Maria was drained and slept for 4 hours in the floor near her cubicle, her hair was a mess, she took off her shoes, her clothes were rumpled and she looked like she spent the whole night either working or having wild sex.

"Maria, Harvey is coming up. Let's go share what we have." Mike said slowly to her, as tired as she felt.

" I wanna die."She muttered and hit her head on her table before getting up.

They reached Harvey's office and collapsed on the leather couch.

" We know where they don't want us to look." Maria said when Harvey arrived.

"Did you get through all those files in one night?" He asked the exhausted lawyers.

"Eh, we would have done it faster but we ordered a pizza and milkshake." Maria said with a tired smile.

"Speaking of which, have you ever had the cheese in the crust? Because it blew my mind." Mike said and stuck his tongue out to Maria, who didn't want tô add the cheese in the crust but ended up loving it.

"The cheese was okay, not this greatness you speak of." Maria commented.

" Enough kids, everyone knows cheese makes everything better. You guys look like crap."

" You smell" Maria told Mike who took a whiff of himself and grimaced

" You look like you spent the whole night having wild sex." Mike told her and she simply shrugged.

" But I smell good and still look as hot as ever." She said with a smug grin.

" Now kids, back to the important grown-up's conversation. What d'you find?"

" There was a dismissal on March 12, 2005 but the file with the employee name on it is missing. It's our woman. I know it is. I'm moving to slap sanctions their attorney, possible jail time. That guy's not gonna know what hit him." Maria told her boss while Mike agreed with her.

Harvey dialed some number on the phone and waited for somebody to pick up.

"Dennis. It's Harvey Specter. Did you have anything to do with the March 12th, 2005 files left out of discovery. If they're here by noon, I'll believe you, if not, we're filing for sanctions. " He said on the phone and turned to his 'kids' before teaching them: " Threat of sanctions is better than filing for sanctions."

" That's what we meant. Threaten, not file. Who would mean that?" Mike said while Maria laughed nervously.

Harvey put a razor on the coffee table in front of Mike and told him: "Shave." Before turning around and leaving.

" Hahaha" Maria laughed at her friend who was really growing a beard. Mike stuck his tongue out at her and both laughed at their antics.

Maria and Mike went for another encounter with Nancy, their client in this pro bono case, to ask if she ever heard of any woman called Joanna Webster, the name contained in the file the firm tried to hide. Nancy told them that she never heard about this woman while she worked there. Afterwards, they were on their way to talk with Joanna about the reason why she left the company. On their way, they discussed the case inside of the cab.

" Don't you find it weird that Nancy never heard of this woman ? And that she simply popped out of nowhere ? I mean, their lawyer gave us everything about her after trying to hide it."

" He gave us the info because he was afraid of a sanction."

" Yeah, I know. But when you try to hide something you don't leave it so easily reachable and then show it to everyone." Maria commented.

" I don't know. Let's talk with her first before jumping into conclusions." Mike told his friend.

" Okay. " Maria commented when their taxi reached it's destination.

They sat on the steps near Joanna's door, waiting for her to come back to her house. Joanna was resistant at first and didn't want to testify against the CEO but Maria made some beautiful feminist speech that made her agree and Mike made it all better by asking what she would do if it happened to her daughter.

The duo went back to Pearson Hardman to tell the news to Harvey about their witness, they agreed to fake that they failed first. He was inside of his office listening to some music whole tipping on his computer.

"What happened with the witness?" Harvey asked the pair.

" We failed-" Mike said with a sad look on his face.

" To no be awesome! " Maria exclaimed and spread her arms before leaning on Harvey's desk " You should have seen us, I gave such a tearful speech about the abuse that I could make 'I have a dream' fight for it's fame. And then Mike finished it perfectly." She looked at Mike for him to say his part.

"I asked her what if it was her daughter that he did this to? She melted. Oh, and you know how I came up with that little gem?" Mike asked and answered his own question in a whispered tone" I cared about her."

" Oooooh." Maria said backing of and taking a deep breath. She pretended to shoot Harvey with his fingers, Harvey swiveled in his chair, dodging the pretend bullet with a smile on his face.

" Yeah, thank you." Mike said while Maria playfully bowed down to him.

" I'm glad to see that staying up all night doesn't make you act like a complete idiots." Harvey told them while Mike offered his arm to Maria and they, arm in arm, started twirling around and sing " Lalalalalalalalalala"

" Now, go home and get some sleep, I don't want you waving that thing around during tomorrow's deposition." Harvey told them and they started to leave but he said: " Maria, I wanted to talk to you about something." Maria's shoulders slumped back and she playfully tried to reach Mike's hands with a dramatic look on her face before Mike turned serious because Jessica was coming.

" I will be waiting outside." She told Harvey.

Maria went to grab a glass of water while Jessica talked with Harvey about something. When she came back, Jessica left looking angry while Harvey was looking frustrated.

" So, you wanted to talk about..." Maria asked impatiently, she really wanted to get back home to her cat.

" You hate me." Harvey said as a matter of fact " Is it because I didn't call you after we you-know-what?"

" First of all, I don't hate you, I hate everyone. Second, I never expected you call, I never gave you my number." She said with a raised eyebrow.

" 646-520-1833" Harvey said to her.

" How did you get -" She couldn't finish her question before he

" You gave me when you were shitfaced." Harvey told her smugly.

" And looks like you can't get me out of your head, you remember my number but you don't even know the witness' name." Maria answered smugly.

" I know that you don't want a relationship, just like me. But I also know that I was the best sex of your life."

" It was okay." Maria said in an unconvincing way.

" We did it 3 times in one morning. Okay, I know you think it was amazing because it was amazing for me too." Harvey realized that in order to make her confess that she enjoyed it he had to try using the little bit of humbleness he had.

" Okay, I was a leg-shaking bang." Maria conceded.

" Bang ? Nobody says bang anymore."

" English isn't my mother language, Einstein. I forget that sometimes."

" You're not American? But you have no accent, actually, you speak like a true New Yorker."

" I'm Brazilian, English is easier than Portuguese so it's quite easy for me."

" Cool, it makes you even hotter." Harvey said with a smug look on his face.

" Can I go or you just wanted to tell me that I am a goddess in bed?" Maria said impatiently.

" We could be friends with benefits." Harvey asked with raised eyebrows.

" You are my boss, this sounds like the begging of some bad porn." Maria said with a small laugh.

" Yes, but the rules say that if the relationship began before your employment it's completely okay."

" Then yes, I will be your fuckmate" Maria agreed to his scheme.

" You create some polished words, Queen Elizabeth should use some of them in her yearly Christmas' speeches." Harvey commented and approached her.

Maria saw the look on his eyes and knew exactly what he was going to do. She turned around to look if there was anyone in the office, it was empty so she faced Harvey again.

Harvey's hands were around her tiny waist and he gave her a hungry kiss, the kind of kiss that takes your breath away and makes you unable to think straight. Maria kissed him back with the same ardour and they started to make out inside of his office. After a while, things were starting to heat up and Maria found herself against the wall with her legs wrapped around Harvey, she stopped them before they went too far, more than they already did.

" I would love to keep going but I really need to get home."

" You could come to my place tonight." Harvey said still out of breath after their kiss.

" I'd love to but I have a daughter waiting for me at home. And you know how a mother's love feel is."

" You have a kid ?" Harvey asked her with a surprised look on his face.

" Not a kid, a cat. But she still is my baby girl, I haven't been home for more than 24 hours and her automatic feeder is limited to 5 meals."

" I would never take you for a cat lady. You can still come to my place and I can take you home in the morning to take care of your cat and change your clothes."

" You told Mike and me to get some sleep."

" Then we can pass by your place, you can deal with your cat, grab something to change into for tomorrow and we can-"

" What about my morning workout?" Maria said with a small smirk that Harvey knew that was mischievous.

" I can work you out."

" Deal." Maria told him and offered her hand to shake " Did you just 'closed' me? I have to agree that you're a hell good closer."

" The best in New York." Harvey said fixing his tie " Let's go ?"

Harvey called his driver to meet them in front of the firm and opened the door for her to get in.

" I just remembered, why in hell did you open the door for me in front of Mike ? You know he's going to find out that we're fuck buddies." Maria whispered to him since they were in front of the firm.

" He will find out about our 'fuck buddies' arrangement quickly, he is observant." He told her as if it was obvious and Maria rolled her eyes.

Suddenly a luxurious sedan appeared in front of them and a chauffeur came out, opening the door from them. Harvey handed a CD to his driver and the man received it with a small smile.

" Good night." Maria told Ray with a smile and got in before Harvey.

" You are sympathetic." Harvey told her.

" I'm Brazilian, it's quite common about us. I wouldn't say we're sympathetic, Americans are cold. Not cold, more private. If you go to Brazil and talk with anyone for more than 30 minutes you know everything about this person." Maria said with a huge smile remembering her country.

" What made you come to the US ?" Harvey asked her but tried to distract him by putting a hand on his leg " You are trying to avoid answering."

" Is it working ?" Maria whispered with a mischievous smile and her hand travelled to his zipper but she didn't open it, simply caressed his groin. Harvey's eyes got darker and he looked at Ray, who was focused on driving to Maria's apartment.

" Don't start what you can't finish." He whispered back to her and she was going to put her head down to show him that she could and would finish when the car stopped and Ray announced that they got to her address.

Maria left the car and was followed by Harvey, who was adjusting his pants.

" What's wrong with your pants ?" Maria asked with a small smirk.

" Haha" Harvey said sarcastically " Take the smug look of your face, I will get back at you for this."

" Look up to the skies and see." Maria sang playfully pointing to something in her building. Harvey did look up and found a furry cat face staring back at them " She always knows when I am home."

" I didn't see her last time I was here."

" She was in my parents', when I moved out we agreed to share her custody. One week with them, two with me." Maria told him while they walked to her apartment.

" You are completely crazy about this cat. You almost act like Louis." Harvey commented while she looked for her keys inside of her bag

" Is he a cat person ?" Maria didn't found her keys and completely forgot that the door was open. She opened without the keys.

" You leave your door open ? You know that you're in New York ?"

" Who would steal from me when there's richer people to steal from ?" She turned the light on and a huge furball came running to her, the cat threw itself on the floor and waited for her to pet it.

" Don't forget to grab something to change for work tomorrow."

" Come, you shouldn't stay alone in a room with Kitty."

" Why not?" Harvey asked her but before she answered the cat was hissing at him " I'm right behind you."

Maria went to her room and opened the door to her closet, Harvey wasn't expecting such a huge closet filled with tons of designer shoes and bags. Harvey saw her with a duffle bag, she was carefully folding a black pencil skirt and a blouse to wear tomorrow. Meanwhile, her cat was scratching the door to get in. She went to her bathroom and got her makeup kit and her toothbrush.

" Take some gym clothes either." Harvey told her, she got some leggings and a sports bra.

"We're actually working out or is it some crazy fetish to see my hot body in some tight gym clothes ?"

" You have to wait and see." He said with a smile while patiently sitting on her bed and using his phone.

" Don't move a muscle." Maria told him and opened the door. Her cat got in and went straight at her, she picked the furball up and came closer to Harvey "Kitty, this is Harvey. Harvey, this is Kitty."

" Hey, Kitty." He tried to move and touch the cat but she slapped his hand away with his paw, got off Maria's hold and ran away.

" It's okay, she hates everyone I bang." Maria told him and pulled her duffle bag, that was ready to go, on the floor.

" You bang me ? Isn't it the other way around?" Harvey said with a playfull smirk and kissed her.

They started to make out again and Harvey gently pulled her on the bed next to him, he was kissing her neck when he looked at the door and found her cat staring intently at them almost having sex.

" Okay, let's go." Harvey stopped them and got up.

" Is this your revenge for the car thing ?" Maria asked and collapsed on her bed.

" No, I can't do it with your cat staring at us."

" Cats are always like this. Come here, sweetie." She told him and called her cat with a baby voice " Mommy's is leaving again but she loves you" The cat was purring loudly.

Maria grabbed her duffle bag and made her way to the kitchen, she filled her cat's water fountain with fresh water and her feeder with fresh food. The cat came running happily and ate.

" Let's go before she realizes I'm gone." Maria told Harvey and they both left her apartment.

She was going to leave her door unlocked as always but Harvey told her to close it before anyone stole her cat, he had to hit her weakness in order to make her use her keys.

Ray was patiently listening to the radio while waiting for them to come back and he took them to Harvey's place.

"Upper East Side, I knew it." Maria commented " All snobbish and smug people live there." Harvey tolled his eyes.

" It's a great neighborhood." He tried to defend himself.

They finally arrived to Harvey's place and Ray was finally free to go. Harvey guided Maria to his condo, it was a luxurious place.

" When did you last ate? Not some crappy hotdog, an actual meal." Harvey asked her.

" I ate pizza." She said defensively, she knew where he wanted to get with this.

" When?" He asked again.

" Yesterday."

" Aren't you hungry ?"

" Nope. I can stay a long time without eating." Maria defended herself.

" Do you like sushi?"

" Yeah."

" I will ask for someone to deliver it." Harvey said before dialing a number on his phone quickly and ordering their food "Now we just have to wait."

" Wait ?" Maria asked him.

" Wait." He said with a mischievous grin.

" Okay, you can wait while I will be taking this off." Maria said seductively. First she got rid of her shoes, she loved being barefoot. Then she unclasped her bra without taking off her dress and took off her panties.

Her dress was tight so it left little for imagination without anything underneath it. She sat on the couch near Harvey when he quickly threw his cellphone on the couch and sat on the floor between her legs.

"Now it's my turn to tease you." He said that and pulled her closer to him, his hands were gently caressing her body.

Harvey's hands were now cupping her breasts and massaging them softly while his mouth was kissing her neck and gently suckling it. Maria was moaning low, trying to resist his task for revenge but her rock hard nipples gave her away.

"Oh, god. Can we -" Maria tried to say and take of her dress but Harvey's hands stopped her from doing so.

Harvey pulled her legs apart and hiked her dress up enough to give him access to her wet folds. First he used one finger and then two, while his hand caressed her clytoris. Her back arched from all the pleasure she was feeling and she moaned loudly now. Her moans made him fasten his peace till she orgasmed. Maria had to agree that Harvey's tongue was talented and not only for speaking, she was breathless.

" Please, fuck me." Maria begged him now " I'm on birth control, by the way." She said quickly, impatient with him who was taking so long to fill her.

" When you ask so nicely." He said with a smile and took his shirt off before opening his zipper and taking his penis out of his pants. He sat on the couch next to Maria and pulled her on his lap before penetrating her.

Maria was riding him hard and at full speed and they were both almost reaching their climax when the bell rang. Harvey's hands were on her hips helping her to keep a steady pace.

" The food-" Maria said but Harvey's hands didn't move and he kept his pace.

"Shhh." He pulled her faster and more rough them before and quickly they both reached their climax. The delivery guy was still ringing the bell and Maria quickly got of Harvey's lap.

" You better answer the door. I'm afraid that somebody will see me." Maria told him while he was closing his zipper again, running to the door.

Maria hid behind the door that Havey just opened to receive their food. She was trying to control her laughter at this situation, the delivery dude had to wait till they finished having sex and by the way Harvey's always perfect hair was sticking in odd angles, it was quite obvious that he was in the middle of something.

" Do you want some wine ?" Harvey asked her while selecting one of his expensive looking bottles.

"Yep, just a little bit, we have work tomorrow and I really need to sleep." Maria told him, opening their sushi while he put some wine inside of two glasses.

" Jessica was the one who hired you as an associate. How did you meet ?"

" I sent her my resume and she got impressed at the languages I said that I speak."

" What languages?"

" Portugues, of course, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Latin, Esperanto and just a little bit o German."

"Whoa. You are an overachiever. I forgot to ask your age, don't want to be stealing the cradle."

" 24. I will be 25 in May."

" You're a baby. I am a cradle robber." Harvey joked and took a sip of his wine.

" You're not stealing the cradle since I'm willing to let you do it. And I like old guys." She said with a laugh

" Come on, it's older but not old." Harvey said with a playful frown and stuck his tongue out at her " I was the one who first made a move at you, don't want to be guilty of beguiling an innocent child."

" I'm not a child, I'm grown." It was her turn to pull faces at him, who laughed at her antics " And you only made w move because I was almost calling you, I was the one who made you make a move at me."

" No way, you didn't even see me entering the bar." Harvey said, pointing his chopsticks at her.

" Yes I did, I was staring at you all night. It was my signature 'I wanna have sex with you stare." She pushed his chopsticks with hers and they started a chopsticks sword fight.

" Touché!" Harvey exclaimed when he sent Maria's chopsticks flying across the table. She was laughing hard with him and he simply stopped to look at her.

" You're amazing." Harvey told her, seriously.

" I know." Maria said playfully, throwing her hair in a convinced manner.

" We really need to sleep, we have a long day tomorrow." Harvey told her and pulled her on his arms, taking her to his room. He sat on the bed while she pinned him on his lap and they started to make out again.

Maria's dress was thrown at the other side of the room and Harvey's pants got lost somewhere while they had sex agai that night. After the pleasure, they both ended up falling asleep. Maria could swear she felt him caressing her scalp and playing with her hair in a soothing manner, but she was so tired that she wouldn't be able to know what actually happened.

Harvey woke up first, he was holding Maria closely and took a good look at her sleeping form. She was looking so peaceful and calm that almost didn't felt like her usual sarcastic and seductive self. He was admiring her lips, they were beautiful and naturally plump. Her facial bone structure was impeccable. He saw that she was starting to move a little and untangled her from his hold before getting up.

He got dressed in his exercise clothes and turned his coffee maker on. Maria appeared at the kitchen wearing his shirt with a sex-hair, Harvey could swear he never saw anyone looking as beautiful as she looked right now.

"Morning." She said sitting on the kitchen counter.

"Morning." He answered her and offered some coffee, she refused and told him that she hated coffee "Nobody hates coffee, what kind of coffee did you try ?"

" I never drank any coffee, I just dislike it." Maria told him "Just like shrimp. I hate shrimp but never tried, so if I have any allergy I'll never know."

" Maybe we could have breakfast in some cafeteria, we could hike around the park and exercise a little." Harvey told her.

" Okay, let me get ready." Maria told him and went to his bathroom with her duffle bag. She dressed into her grey leggings and red sports bra, brushed her teeth, washed her face and put her sneakers on.

" Absolutely stunning." Harvey told her when she left his room, he was leaning against the counter and pulled his coffee mug down. Her outfit enhanced her long legs and showed her perfectly toned abdomen and small waist.

Maria playfully turned around and walked like a catwalk model. She was shorter than him but she got on her tiptoes to give him a mindblowing kiss. Her legs were wrapped around his waist and they were making out again.

"Let's go." Harvey pulled her down and mentioned the door. She made a fake sad face and mimicked a tear rolling down her cheek "We can't both be late for the firm, that would be suspicious. And you're a rookie, people would think badly of you." Harvey closed his door and they went to the elevator to get down.

" Then I simply tell then that I spent the whole night doing Louis' assignment. "

" He gave you an assignment?"

" Yeah but it's already done, it's the reason why I didn't eat yesterday. I spent my meals doing it so that I wouldn't have anything to do at night." Maria said while stretching.

They walked to Central Park and started running there.

"Race you till that tree!" Maria yelled and ran faster. They were in a grassy area and she thought that she was about to win her own competition when Harvey got her in his hold and gently pinned her down on the grass and kissed her lips. Maria was laughing at being locked in his hold and playfully tried to run free " Help, I'm being kidnapped!"

" You know that here in New York you can't really say it that loud, people will think it's true. Usually it is." Harvey let her go and sat by her side on the grass.

"True." Maria said and started to laugh again " What time is it ?"

" Almost 6:30. We got to eat now if you don't want to late for work." Harvey got up and helped Maria up " I know a great cafe that has a killer french omelet."

" You also shouldn't be late. Let's go there." Maria stated while walking besides him.

" I'm a senior partner, I can be late. You are a rookie, being late in the beginning is suicide." Harvey said wi

" I know. And I still have to treat everyone with dinner."

" Rookie's dinner is coming. Where are you making reservations?"

" I have no idea, I will convince Rachel to come up with something while I organize the-" Maria realized that she almost spilled the beans about her unofficial rookie party to a senior partner.

" Organize what? " Harvey asked her, she shook her head as if it was nothing but he knew that she wouldn't keep it to herself if she said more.

" About racing you to . Bye." Maria told him and ran away.

" I know you're hiding something." Harvey yelled to her and ran after her "You don't even know where the cafe is." Maria came back and followed him.

They went to the cafe and quickly ate before going back to Harvey's condo to get ready for the day. They showered together again and afterwards got ready for work.

While Maria was brushing her teeth dressed in a robe while Harvey had a towel wrapped around his waist.

" Tell me."

"What ?"

" You know what."

" If you don't I will do something that will give away our arrangement. " Harvey said with a wicked grin.

" As if you would."

" I would." He stared at her seriously while she shot him 'the look'. 'The look' was a kind of stare she gave to seduce people, her cat like blue eyes were beguiling and made many people change their minds "Gosh, your eyes are beautiful."

"Thanks."

" But I won't back down after this hot stare, you think you are a Betazoid ?"

" If I'm a Betazoid, you're a Ferengi."

" Ouch." Harvey said with a small smirk and a hand holding his chest, she was a Trekkie " Tell me, please."

" Since you asked so nicely. I will have an unofficial rookie party this Friday."

" Great, where is it ?"

" Nope, don't even think about it. I won't bring my boss to a party where we're suppose to have drinking games."

" I will find out and crash your party." Harvey told her with a small smile.

" If you find out the address I will let you come. But you can't use Mike or any associate's help." Maria defied him with a raised eyebrow.

" Game on."

Their case has some bumps but worked out perfectly after Maria commented that they might have planted that witness, they knew about her past transgressions and she didn't utter a word to the. She knew something was shady since the beginning.

Maria was elated that the first case that she had a chance to work with went along so well. It called for a celebration.

" Wanna celebrate ?" Maria asked Rachel while the paralegal was working.

" Nope. It's Thursday, we have another party this Friday. Your party, by the way."

" Come to celebrate with me, please." Maria invited Mike but he told her he was busy visiting his grandma.

" Please, celebrate with me." Maria begged Donna but she had a date tonight and that she would go to the party on Friday.

Everyone was busy. Maria knew that she was independent and didn't need anybody's company to have fun so she went to a Brazilian bar. There was a band playing some of her favorite songs and tons of beverages that could make her completely drunk. She was in heaven.

" I knew you would be here. I'm quite sure your party will be held here." Harvey Specter arrived out of nowhere and sat by her side at the booth.

" Gosh, you simply appear. You're like a reverse Batman, we never see you coming."

" What's it that you're drinking ?" He asked her.

" Cachaça."

" Ka what?"

" It's a Brazilian distilled drink made from sugar cane juice. Try it." She passed him her glass

Harvey tried the alcoholic drink and at first it felt overpowering and full of alcohol before leaving a subtle wood flavor.

" It contains 40% of alcohol, the same as some brandies and whiskeys."

" But not as good."

" It's better." Maria drank the whole shot in one gulp and grimaced " This one burnt like hell."

" You could come over to my place and we could drink tons of better beverages."

" We have work tomorrow and I would have to get back home to get a change of clothes and talk to Kitty just like the last time."

" I have another suit with me at the car."

" Then you can come to my place." Maria conceded and they left side by side with smiles on their faces.


	2. Chapter 2

Maria now used to work along with Harvey, Louis and mostly Jessica. She was getting used to her working routine. This week Jessica gave her to Louis and everyone told her that she would either die or kill herself after being near him for more than 5 minutes.

Since Harvey heard the news that she was working with Louis he was bent on being a pain in her ass at work, he yelled at her for no obvious reason, found nonexistent mistakes on her briefs and made Donna forbid her of barging into his office like she and Mike usually did if he was all by himself. At night he would come to her place and she would take out all the built frustration on him, she couldn't complain about it too much since it was sexually good and at the same time hid whatever they had from their coworkers.

Maria woke up in the morning before Harvey and went to her closet to choose an outfit and found the perfect dress, it was a Blue Carolina Herrera dress that reached her knees and enhanced her long legs. She took a shower and got dressed but stopped abruptly after looking at her neck in the mirror, the little fucker gave her a hickey.

"Morning." Harvey told her, getting inside of the closet and kissing her lips.

" What's good about this morning?" Maria told him while angrily taking off her dress before throwing it at the wall.

" What ?" He asked feigning innocence.

" Look at this monstrosity!" Maria pointed to her neck " How do you think I'm going to look like ?"

" Like someone who has sex with her boss?" Harvey told her with a cheeky grin.

" I have to wear a damned turtleneck because of you. I will be looking like damned Steve Jobs." Maria was searching around for her black turtleneck.

" If Steve Jobs had a body like yours he wouldn't use the same shirt all the damn time."

" Your sweet talk isn't getting you free from my revenge, sir. I will get back at you someday. And he worn this kind of shirt for a meaningful reason that showed that his mind was complicated enough to make him a billionaire, or at least that's what he tried to sound like."

" Someday? What about right now. And Jobs was a genius, he can create this kind of meaningless bullshit and we all buy it, just like his tech." Harvey said while trailing kisses at her neck.

" Once a closer, always a closer. You know that if I get back at you right now, you're going to be free of any other treat but if I withhold the treat it could happen any day, at anytime. So you pretty much want me to give you a hickey right now so you won't be afraid of hickeys later."

" I'd have to stop having sex with you."

" Then stop, try it." Maria said with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms over her chest. She took of her strapless bra since she wouldn't be wearing the dress that would require it and put her turtleneck on in front of Harvey.

" Are you going to work without a bra ?" Harvey asked her with a surprised look on his face.

" I'm wearing a blazer over the turtleneck, why would I add an uncomfortable piece of crap that squish my boobs?" Maria told him before throwing a towel at him, he picked it before it hit him and got undressed.

" To let me work without losing my focus everytime I think about it ?" Harvey told her while he got inside of the shower.

" What I wear or don't is none of your concern. " She told him from her spot, thinking that the sound of the running water would not make him able to hear it.

"Yeah, neither is the Yankees batting order, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it." Harvey told her from the shower.

" Annoying bastard. I may have take off my panties if it gets too hot either." Maria said with a smirk while she applied some red lipstick.

" You like this bastard just like this. Don't you dare taking them off while I'm working my ass off." Harvey left the shower and kissed her lips, smudging her makeup and getting some on himself.

" I do like your ass." Maria said it and kissed him back passionately before he pinned her against the wall. Things were getting heated but she stopped them.

" I'd love to keep going and all that but, well, you have lipstick on." Maria told him before fleeing from the bathroom.

Harvey looked at himself in the mirror and his mouth was indeed painted with a strong red lipstick.

" Sneaky woman." He muttered with a laugh before washing it off.

" Hey, I am in a bit of a rush here but I've made some brazilian tapioca crepe for you. Gotta get there at least 30 minutes earlier." Maria told him quickly while grabbing her purse and keys.

" I will lock your door when I leave. Don't know why you need to be there earlier than everyone." Harvey told her from the kitchen, twirling his copy of her apartment's keys between his fingers.

" You know that there's no need to lock my door, just keep it open. And I get there earlier because I can get more stuff done than everyone else, call it a head start."

" You're crazy. For one, some crazy psycho might come in here and do something weird with you or your stuff and two, you are going TOO early."

" Whatever. Bye" Maria blew him a kiss and waited for her cat to see her at the door, like the kitten always did, and kissed its head before telling the pet that she loved it.

" You are a lucky son of a bitch." Harvey told the cat after Maria had left " But you know that someday you will have to share her love with me." The cat looked at him with an angry expression and hissed before scratching his hand.

" Ouch, stupid cat." Harvey told the pet and started eating the breakfast that Maria made for him, it was absolutely delicious and tasty. He needed her to make it again someday. The cat jumped to the counter next to him and looked at him with pleading eyes.

" If you think I'm going to feed you after you simply drew blood out of my hand, you're wrong." He told the cat, who looked like puss in boots' pleading look now " Last time I gave you some food other than your dietetic ration Maria almost killed me, she brushes your teeth, she will know."

The cat started to purr loudly and look at him in a cute way and Harvey, instead of giving her food, caressed her head. It was 5 minutes of pure love between man and cat but then she started biting his hand again.

" I give up." Harvey told the cat angrily and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth before leaving for work.

Maria went to work earlier then everyone and managed to get Louis' assignments done before he arrived. She also knew that she would be the one proofing the Bainbridge briefs. She got this information after convincing Rachel to ask them to be printed before they were due and she also made Norma tell her what was on Louis' schedule.

People were starting to arrive, even Harvey arrived by now, soon Norma told her that Louis was calling her to go to his office.

" Jessica put you under my supervision for some time. I just want to make it clear that just because you're her protegee it doesn't mean that I will take it easy on you." Louis said to her in his usual annoying self.

" Good. Since she hired me because I don't need someone to take it easy on me."

" I want you to go through the Brainbridge briefs and review all of them highlighting what's important. "

" You asked me to review, of course I will highlight what's more important, that's the meaning of reviewing." Maria told him.

" Good, since you're so cheeky about it I want them done by the end of the day." Louis shot back.

" I can make it on my sleep." Maria said with a confident smirk and left.

"Damn, I'd marry her if she was less attractive." Louis said out of breath after the confrontation.

Maria went to the kitchens to find something to eat while reading the huge stack of found some chips and was turning around to leave when Donna met her there.

" Hi, Maria."

" Hey." Maria said with a smile.

" I know that seeing an associate so calm while working with Louis is scary but this look on your face tells me that you're planning something. What's it ?" Donna told her after reading her like a book.

" I don't know what you're talking about."

" You also have a hickey on your neck and that means that Harvey is supposed to be calm and happy today."

" I don't have a hickey. You can't see it."

" You do, you never worn a turtleneck before and, knowing of your dirty little secret affair, I'm sure of it."

" I have a hickey."

" How was he ?" Donna asked with a smile and sat by her side.

" He is great. You guys never -"

" Nope, he is like an older brother. I could never do it." Donna told truthfully " How big is he ?"

" I'm not telling you that." Maria said with a blush

Donna started to try mimick Harvey's size by separating her fingers and asked Maria to tell her when to stop. Maria let her make a space bigger than 10 inches when donna said: " I'm starting to worry for you."

" It's nothing compared to the things we did. I have so much to tell you, we should go out for a girl's night someday."

" Have you told Rachel ?" Donna asked her.

" No, and I won't."

" You should, she is your best friend."

" Exactly, she is my best friend and I want her to stay as my best friend. I know that she will flip when I tell her this."

" She will understand."

" I don't want to lose her friendship over this thing. Harvey and I will finish things someday and I don't want to wreck my friendships and career over some fling."

" Why do you think you guys are meant to be over ? You really think that Harvey Specter would sleep at your place if you were a mere fling? " Donna asked with a concerned look on her face, she actually liked them together and wanted them to get married so she would have fun planning a wedding for her boss and friend with unlimited budget.

" We're fuck buddies, that's it. Not really a solid thing to expect a long term relationship from, Donna."

" Don't you want to be more ?" Donna's asked her but she was really afraid of the answer, she knew that Harvey wanted more with Maria and that he cared a lot about her, she could see ir in nos eyes whenever Maria passed by. And, knowing how hard it was for him to open up for a new relationship like he did with Maria, she was afraid of how much his trust issues would deepen if Maria broke them up before actually getting started.

" I don't know." Maria said thoughtfully " I never thought about it because I was too afraid, thinking of the end. But I realized that I've been thinking so much about how things are going to end that I forgot about how great they are right now or how great they could be."

" You should think about it." Donna told her seriously " Please, don't break his heart. I know him for a long time to know when he cares about someone, he cares about you."

"Bye, Donna." Maria said with a small smirk.

Some time later, Norma called her to Louis' office to talk about something. Maria couldn't deny that she was terrified of what could possibly be, the briefs were a pain in her ass for a long time.

"You wanted to see me?" Maria said in front of Louis' office.

"Sit down. I looked through your work on the Bainbridge briefs." Maria held her breath, of course she messed up something and would look like an idiot in front of one of her bosses. "Spectacular. You caught the discrepancies between "listed assets" and "potential assets. " That had a huge impact, Maria" Maria let go of the breath she was holding, maybe she didn't screw with everything yet.

"Yeah. I know. Millions. But anyone would have caught that, right?" Maria reasoned with him, it was a pretty obvious actually.

"Um, out of the 50 associates that are under my purview, not one of them would have caught that. You just have this eye for detail, Maria. I mean, no wonder why Jessica is so crazy about you. It's amazing." Louis told her but she was getting scared of it, he would never willingly compliment her work.

" Thanks, I guess." She said with an award fake smile.

"You know that I pick a pony out of the herd every year, don't you? A pony? Oh, yeah. Someone who shows potential. Stamp my own little brand on him. Mmm. Are you that pony, Maria?"

"I work for Jessica and I don't think I'm a pony."

"As you should."

"Well, listen, I have some work to get to, do you have any other assignment for me ?"

"So, maybe we can, uh, meet for lunch tomorrow at the club, say 1:00 p. m. ? Uh, you know, tomorrow I know I just posed that as a question, but I really didn't mean it that way, let's name it your next assignment." He said, finally showing his true colors.

Maria gave him the angriest smile that she could make and left before cursing him to oblivion.

She went to the bathroom and came up with an idea, she passed by Harvey's office and saw him inside so it would make it's execution easier. She took off her panties and put then inside of a big envelope before closing it and addressing it to Harvey.

" Donna, can I?" Maria asked the secretary while pointing her finger to the door when she got near Harvey's office.

" Yes, actually he was looking for you." Donna told her before letting her in.

" Hey." Maria said with a devilish grin that he knew all to well.

" Hey." He said with a frown.

" Well, you don't look that happy to see me."

" Remember that gallery gala that we went together? "

" Yeah, it was a blast but that little piece of crap was falling all over you." Maria commented sitting down on the leather couch.

" Exactly, looks like she got a little angry at you for calling her a 'sexually frustrated married slag' and got back at you by screwing MY case. At the end you screwed my case by association." Harvey accused her.

" Excuse me?" Maria said angrily.

" She was the judge's wife and said that we had an affair. He got angry at the man who took part on making him a fake cuckold and denied my request, I couldn't even tell him that I had a girlfriend because, well, you always tell me that you're not." Harvey told her angrily.

" I still don't see where is my fault in your little drama. You know what? I don't care. Screw it." Maria shot back before throwing the envelope she was holding inside of her trash can.

" He doesn't mean it, his case is just very messy at this moment and he is taking it off on you." Donna tried to reason with her.

" Poor him but I'm not an idiot for taking the blame when it's not my actual fault because he is angry that everything isn't working the way he wants." Maria told Donna.

" Do I cancel your reservations for tonight's dinner ?" Donna asked with a small grin, trying to convince her.

" Nope." Maria said and Donna's face lit up at the news that she wouldn't be that angry at Harvey.

" Great. It's at-"

" Nope, they are HIS reservations, he doesn't need my presence to eat. Hope he chokes." Maria said angrily and stormed away. Donna's intercom went on.

" Donna, cancel my reservations." Harvey told her on the line before going trough the trash can to find whatever she threw away. He knew it couldn't be anything work related since she was too professional to do that.

Maria was working angrily and that was actually pretty efficient, she managed to read and take notes of tons os pages and sent them back to Jessica. Her cubicle was away from Harvey so she wouldn't have to look at his face right now, that was actually really comforting and annoying at the same time.

She went back home and ordered salad from her favorite place before kicking of her shoes and changing into something comfortable. She found one of Harvey's shirts inside of her dresser and decided that she could fell his smell while angry with him because it wouldn't change her anger.

She made some food for herself and poured some wine for her, she sat in front of the TV and realxed on the couch with her cat on her lap purring a lot.

She prepared a steaming bath for her and relaxed all of her tense muscles inside of that tub before going to sleep, the little problem was that her bed felt too big for her without Harvey and she was rolling around to find a great position to sleep all by herself without any success. She admitted to herself that she actually missed him a little but she wouldn't budge, she wouldn't let him be a bitch to her for no apparent reason and get away with it.

Meanwhile, the great Harvey Specter was feeling like an ass for being an ass towards the wrong person. He was sitting in front of the fire drinking some scotch and thinking about when Maria wasn't so damn angry at him and would sit in the same spot he was sitting on and talk about everything or playfully quarrel about wich movie watch. He was getting used to her presence and yearned for it every second of the day, being without her was boring and terrifying because he felt like his life before meeting her wasn't as amazing as he used to find it.

He couldn't sleep inside of his room today, not without her to make his king sized bed smaller, warmer and more comfortable. She had so many clothes inside of his closet that he was going to talk to her about moving more of her stuff there and getting her own part of the closet before their fight. He grabbed the pillow that she liked to use to sleep with and went to the couch.

In the morning, Maria decided to wear a long leather skirt with a blouse and a thin suit jacket over it. She also worn pantyhose and a beautiful pair of Louboutins. She was dressed to kill and she surely wanted to kill someone today, be it Harvey or Louis, she didn't care at the moment.

She arrived early and avoided both of said men to work in peace and without her daily dose of drama that could easily turn her life into a fanfiction or a bad and dramatic soap opera. She skipped lunch and earned a disapproving look from Mike, whose cubicle was right next to hers. Around midday, she was answering an important phone call when Louis appeared and turned it off. She mentally counted to ten talking to him.

" Jessica told me to mentor you for a while and that means you have to listen to what I say." Louis told her and she used all of her willpower to not roll her eyes till they got stuck in the back of her head. She went to said lunch and game anyway, it would be a nice way to blow of some of her anger.

Maria was very competitive and was going head to head at tennis with Louis, though she had to admit that he was very good at this and would probably win, as if his ego needed more wins to make him feel superior to everyone else.

She saw Louis making a fool of himself to talk to a blonde man named Tom, he was too interest to be closely she saw that he was Tom Keller, the owner and creator of one of her favorite online games Fantasy Football. The game wa every popular and was making tons of money, of course Louis wanted him as a client. She asked Louis about it and he confirmed her suspicions, he was indeed Tom fucking Keller and Louis wanted indeed to be his lawyer because he couldn't get over the fact that the guy's fraternity brother was his lawyer.

" Let's hit the showers." Louis called Maria, who pointed to herself.

" Me ? My showers are separated from yours." Maria stated as a matter of fact.

" Not today." Louis said and she followed him. Dear lord, she was praying to God that she wouldn't have to look at Louis naked, it would be the biggest torture ever.

She followed him to the Male's changing room and told him to turn around while she changed into a towel otherwise she would sue him for sexual harassment. She sat on a booth while he looked for something when Tom Keller passed by. Tom spent some seconds staring at Maria's body, covered only by a towel.

"Hey, Tom. You just missed a great game. We were, uh. We were just... I was beating him." Louis mumbled and Maria, who was out of his eyesight rolled her eyes, Tom held her gaze and grinned to her before running away from Louis. "You know, 10 years ago, before these dot-com millionaires, there were men of substance in this club. You know, men who understood how business gets done." Louis said angrily and in a very prejudiced and old fashioned way.

"Well, maybe he's just not interested in talking business while he's in a towel. And the world changed, so did business." Maria stated as a matter of fact.

"Maria, he's not interested because he doesn't think I'm cool. And he's a pot-head who thinks that anybody who doesn't smoke is a nerd. I mean So I treat my body like a temple. Does that make me uncool? I don't think so." He showed his physique off and Maria held her laughter.

"No." Maria said without actually believing and muttered a big Yes inside of her head and praying to God that maybe he would be reasonable and not get naked in front of her just to give her nightmares. But he was getting undressed and it almost killed her spirits.

"But on the other hand, you kind of seem his type." Louis told her.

"I'm everyone's type, I'm amazing. But why do you say that?"

"Because you're young. And you think of yourself as hip. Whatever, I guess. You know, I'm sure you enjoy the occasional bong hit."

"No. No. I don't smoke. I only smoke the best cigars out there and the occasional cigarettes." Maria stated as a matter of fact.

"I mean, that's just a little strange."

"Why is it strange?"

"I mean, because, you know, the drug test that you took Well, that I made you take, would indicate otherwise. You're not going to dispute it now, are you? Relax, Maria."

" Relax ? you are accusing me with a fake test result that may jeopardize my job and you want me to relax. I'd punch your ugly face right now if you didn't have the power to fire me." Maria shot back.

" I'm just saying that you have the power of possibly finding a new client for the firm. Well, ball's in your court." Louis said this and got naked in front of her. She was wide eyed and gagged when he turned around.

" Hey, Tom." Louis said when he passed by the blonde younger man. Tom ignored him again and almost laughed at Maria's disgusted face.

" Hey, uh, I know you must hear this all the time, but I totally addicted to your website, man."Maria told him with a smile and turned around.

"All right. Who placed sixth in passing yards last year?" Tom tested Maria

"Carson Palmer." Maria said with confidence, she knew everything about his site.

"How many sacks did James Hall have?" She shot back to him.

"Eleven?" Tom tried to answer but Maria shook her head.

"Nope. Ten-and-a-half." Maria corrected him.

"Yeah, I know. I rounded up." Tom answered

"Well, your league doesn't, or I'd have come in better than 10th." Maria told him.

"You're Martin Martian. Right?"

"Yeah. Maria Martin is my actual name, sounds less childish." Maria shook hands with him when he answered her with his name.

"Good to meet you."

" 've got a nice little team there. If Frankristina hadn't let you down, you would have been top 3 for sure. I'm telling you."

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you get high before the draft, right?" Maria told him, instantly regretting playing with someone so nice to get a client for damned Louis.

"You get high?" Tom asked her and invited her to smoke with him in a more secluded area.

" That guy doesn't gives me the creeps because he is my boss. But he annoys the hell out of me." Maria said while smoking the joint just like she would smoke any other cigarettes.

" I can't imagine being near him during the whole day."

" I'm going to commit either murder or suicide. Probably murder." Maria told her new friend.

" You are a great person, you can survive his presence without being affected by it." Tom said this and made her regret her decision even more and right now the weed was taking it's effect on her and she felt more paranoid than the usual.

" That's exactly why I have to tell you this. He actually planned to make me convince you to make our firm your new lawyers, that's why he's been stalking you. He tried to use me to lure you, I actually admire how sneaky and smart that was but I am angry at being his pawn. I won't try to convince you to do anything because that's not who I am, I just want to make you aware of his intentions." Maria said quickly with a nervous tone.

" Damn, I was expecting that you were into me."

" You're the perfect guy and the type I'd usually would go for but I'm in a kinda complicated relationship right now. Looks like having sex with your boss is morally wrong. Shit, I shouldn't say that. Dude, I am hungry." Maria said that with a weird tone on her voice.

" Shoot, the best ones are all taken." Tom said with a smirk " Actually, I need a little bit of deviousness in my business, maybe your firm is great to work with, at least I know there's an honest person there controlling the amount of deviousness."

" Cool, I'm cool and it's cool, bye." Maria said with a dazed smile and left the club stumbling.

Maria showered, this time in the ladies room and went back to Pearson Hardman. She was feeling weird, everything felt funny and she was a little paranoid that everyone would know that she smoked pot. She was calling the elevator, pressing the button repeatedly and only stopped when Jessica appeared and greeted her.

" How's it going with Louis ?" Jessica asked her intern.

" Awful." Maria said and started to laugh, Jessica laughed along with her and left the elevator.

Maria was freaking out and felling really relaxed at the same time. It was so weird that she wanted to laugh at this, so she did. She was laughing the entire time and decided to wash her face inside of the bathroom but ended up simply laughing at her high reflection in the mirror while playing with the tap. Harvey entered the bathroom and found Maria in the craziest state he'd ever seen, she was a laughing mess inside of the Male's bathroom.

" What are you doing in here ?" She asked in between laughs.

" It's the male's bathroom." Harvey said looking at her confused.

"Cool." Maria said and started to laugh again.

" You usually act weirdly but not this weird. Are you okay ? Your face is red, looks like you've been out in the sun. Is it because we fought ?"

" Of course not, Louis took me to the tennis club this morning."

" He didn't tell you about the ponies, that he likes to cut one from the herd."

"The ponies." Maria said it and started to laugh at the funny word.

" Was he wearing a headband?"

" Yeah, it was actually exactly like mine but I have hair on my head that makes it useful." Maria said in between laughs. Harvey walked up to her so bow they were standing face to face.

" You're high?"

" Yeah." Maria said that and started to laugh.

" Have you ever smoked weed before?" Harvey asked her, her reaction was way too strong.

" No. But I kinda had to, long story. I am hungry, my mouth feels funny."

" Let's grab something to eat outside." Harvey said this and they left the building.

Harvey had to stand in front of the elevator's buttons because Maria couldn't stop pressing them. He guided her outside and they sat in a bench.

" What happened ? I know you too well to know that a fight with me wouldn't make you smoke weed." Harvey asked her.

" I was at the club with Louis and he wanted me to talk to Tom Keller, I actually play Fantasy Football so I knew him from the internet, but Louis wanted him to be our client at the firm and made me say that I smoke weed to play so that he would be my friend. I lied to the guy and took a joint but then I got paranoid and told him the truth because he was too nice to me."

" You're not being very objective right now but I think I understood." Harvey told her.

" I am feeling funny." Maria said with a giggle.

" I can see it."

" No, funny really. I am cold and everything is spinning."

" What?" Harvey got worried at this and touched her forehead, she was freezing.

" Cool." Maria said with a laugh.

" I think your blood pressure is low. You are having some crazy reaction to weed." Harvey told her worriedly.

" That's funny, what do I do?"

" Nothing." Harvey told her and called Ray to take her to his place before going back to the building.

He was pushed off at Louis and angrily went to his colleague's office even though at the moment he would call him his enemy.

" You took Maria Martin on a field trip today ?"

"Yep." The other lawyer said calmly

"Aside from subjecting her to being inside of the Male's changing room completely unsafe and subjecting her to you in a towel. What happened?" Harvey asked him angrily.

" I won in straight sets."

" Don't play dumb, Louis."

" She is a very intelligent and beautiful woman, as her mentor for the time being I simply taught her the best way of using both of said assets. She needs to know what she is capable of, kid was starving for a mentor."

" If you try anything like this with her again or even try to move in on her again I will personally kill you. I am quite sure Jessica would be my lawyer if I killed you after knowing what you did to her associate."

" Jessica is barely teaching her. She needed me as a mentor, a teacher. Harvey, where is this coming from ? Are you jealous ?"

" Jealous of what ? You and Maria ? I wouldn't be even if it was a possibility."

" Of course not, I would never go for her like this, she is way too hot, ew. I'm talking about jealousy of Maria telling Jessica that I'm a better mentor than you, you're jealous that maybe she will make me senior."

" Louis, I'm already a senior associate. I don't give a damn or two about your position here, as long as you're working here I will think of you as a pain in my ass." Harvey said this angrily and Louis was saved by Donna, who announced that the counsel was on the line waiting for him.

Harvey's case was in deep shit, his girlfriend (or at least that's what he called her) was higher than Empire State and his day was a mess, he got home feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

When he got inside of his apartment Maria was calmer and watching some Brazilian soap opera on tv while wearing one of his t-shirts that was way too big for her and looked like a dress.

" Hey, how are you feeling ?" Harvey asked her and kissed her shoulder after sitting next to her.

" Horny." Maria said with a smirk and kissed his neck " I never got high before and judging my experience today I will never get high again, so when can I ever try to have high sex again ?" Maria told him with a smirk before straddling his lap.

" You forgot that you were ignoring me yesterday ? We have to talk." He resisted to her touch but she bit his neck and started to unbutton his suit.

" You're sure about talking ?" Maria asked him with a devious glint in her eyes.

" You should try to shut me up." Harvey told her with a smile before she kissed his neck.

"Okay."

They ended up having some wild sex session but Harvey wanted to talk about what happened afterwards and he always gets what he wants.

Maria was resting her head on Harvey's naked chest while he played with her hair with one hand after their activities. They were both relaxed and calmer than yesterday, when they had some crazy discussion about something that should normally be laughable to them.

" I'm sorry I overreacted and put the blame on you for something that you couldn't control." Harvey told her.

" As you should be. It's okay, I'm sorry for being a bitch to you and hoping that you would choke with your food." Maria told her lover.

" You hoped that I would choke ? You wanted me to die just because we fought?"

" Not die, just suffer or get a little scare." Maria said with a apologetic smile.

" It's okay." Harvey mimicked her " I can assure you that you made me suffer long enough." He stopped caressing her neck and started to caress her neck.

" Good." Maria said with a smirk while she straddled him and kissed his lips" Are we okay ?"

" Yeah. We are, for now. You have yet to tell me why you were high during work time." Harvey told her while he held her tiny waist with his hands.

" It's a long, hard and big story that I'd like to keep inside of me." Maria muttered playfully while swinging her hips in a teasing way.

" I am quite sure I'm up for it. " Harvey spun her around and pinned her down before kissing her neck " But we still have to talk about Louis' weed."

" He can go fuck himself while you're doing the same to me. I will deal with him tomorrow." Maria said with smirk and let him take over control.

Maria woke up later than usual to the smell of eggs and coffee, she smiled to herself, got up and then headed to the kitchen where Harvey was reading a newspaper and sitting near the counter, he still had his pajamas on.

" Morning." Maria told him and kissed his cheek.

" Morning." Harvey told her with a smile " Feeling better ?"

" Yeah." Maria said with a smile and made an egg sandwich for herself while staring at Harvey's face " Has anyone ever said to you that you have amazing cheekbones?"

"Nope. That's one of the most specific comments about how hot I am."

" Your cheekbones are really hot. They make you manly and intimidating.

" Are you still high?"

" I want more sex." Maria said with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

"Coffee? It will give us some strength for more." Harvey offered his mug to her but she made a face and turned her head to the other side.

" You know that I hate coffee, I like some tea better than this bitter crap." Maria said with a smirk and poured hot water into her mug with some matte leaves.

" What the hell is this?"

" Erva matte or matte tea, it has the strength of coffee, the health benefits of tea, and the joy of chocolate. It's a famous south American tea. Here, try it, I added some lemons juice to give it a better taste." Maria offered him her mug.

" It's actually good."

"That's why I don't drink coffee." Maria told him with a smirk and stuck her tongue out for him before taking their plates to the sink to wash them, they had the agreement that one of them would be the cook and the other one would deal with the dishes.

" I don't get how come you have some crazy organic foods but at the same time eat a cake like Bruce Bogtrotter." Harvey told her.

" The diet and the crazy organic foods are meant to let me eat my candy without feeling guilty. Are you really using a reference from Matilda ? " Maria finished quickly and turned around " I'm saving the planet by eating organic crap and may save it even more if you agree to shower with me."

" Again? Aren't you tired from doing it tons of time yesterday?" Harvey asked her in disbelief.

" You can't keep up with me, old man?" Maria said with a smirk and took off Harvey's shirt that she made the habit of using as a pajama.

" As if." Harvey told her and kissed her mouth. They were making out against the counter when Maria's cellphone rang and she turned around to answer it while Harvey's arms were still wrapped around her waist and he was caressing her back .

" Hey, good morning. How are you?" Maria said with a smile. Meanwhile, Harvey started to kiss her neck.

" I'm good, it's been a long time since we hang out. Wanna have breakfast that bakery that you love ?" Rachel said to her on the other side of the line. Maria was trying hard to pay attention to what she said on the phone but Harvey was way too distracting and she was playfully trying to make him stop.

" I can't, I already had breakfast. But we can schedule something tomorrow." Maria said with a breathless tone that made Harvey laugh.

" It's okay." Rachel told her on the line.

"Umm" Maria let a moan scape because of Harvey's ministrations while she was on the phone and, of course, Rachel heard it and Harvey managed to completely embarrass her.

"What's it? Did you moan?" Rachel said to her friend with a laugh.

" I am just eating a delicious breakfast. Bye , love ya." Maria finished the call quickly before Harvey made her embarrass herself even more.

" Who?" Harvey asked Maria after she ended the call. He was caressing her tights in the way he knew she loved.

" A friend I used to sleep with all the time." Maria commented with a smile. Harvey's caressing stopped and he turned to look at her with an astonished look.

" What?" He asked open mouthed.

" I always sleep with her."

" You used to sleep with a woman? Are you still sleeping with her while being with me? "

" Are you crazy ? Hell no, you misunderstood my meaning, in portuguese sleep with is like having that kind of party that you sleep with your friends and have pillow fights." Maria told him and Harvey let out a breath and a relieved laugh " How often you forget that english is my second language."

" Sleepover." Harvey told her " Your accent makes it sound like you were born an raised in New York."

" I'm a brazilian girl, born and raised." Maria said with a smile "It was Rachel on the line."

" The paralegal ? Are you guys close?"

"Very. Her family was my exchange family, they basically adopted me for a year when I was 15 and she was 17."

" You are younger than her ?!" Harvey asked baffled while they went back to Harvey's room to get ready.

" The Brazilian school system is completely different than the American one. I didn't go to college, after a Brazilian high school I was qualified to go straight to Harvard's law school." Maria explained while she choose her outfit for the day " Will you borrow me one of your white shirts ?"

" It's actually interesting. You're not going to work wearing my shirt." Harvey told her while she picked up his shirt.

" I won't use last night's clothes again plus your shirts are comfy." Maria said with a pleading look on her face.

" Drop this Puss In Boots look off your face."

" Please." Maria said with the cutest voice ever and her eyes started to water. She was pretty good at it, one lone tear fell off her left eye and Harvey was speechless.

"No, don't cry, damn it, you're good. Take it, take whatever you'd like." Harvey told her quickly, trying to calm her down while picking up a suit from his closet and putting it in front of him before asking Maria's opinion" What do you think ?"

" Gostoso para caralho." Maria said in Portuguese, even her voice changed when she said it.

" What did you say?" Harvey asked her.

" Google it." Maria said with a smirk " Can't translate now 'cause I have to run to the shower, I have to be at the firm earlier than Jessica." Maria said with a fake innocent look on her face and ran to the bathroom.

" I don't have to be there early because I'm awesome." Harvey told to her.

" Then your awesome self can take a shower alone." Maria screamed from the shower, thinking that Harvey was in the other room. She was washing her hair and had her eyes closed.

" No." Harvey said from behind her and caressed her hair that she had already removed the shampoo.

" Jesus do céu ! Diabo !" She screamed at the scare he gave her. The other lawyer started to laugh at her expense and she gently shoved him under the running water " I'd say that you acted like batman but the actors are so damn hot that I won't give you the pleasure of being compared to them."

" I will look up on the web everything you say in Portuguese. " Harvey said with a laugh " I let you take my shirt so in exchange you will wash my hair."

" Is it supposed to be a punishment? I like caressing heads, I never did that because I didn't know if you would be comfortable with that." Maria told him while she applied shampoo on his head she confused his shampoo with hers and kept going.

" Why I wouldn't be comfortable with that ?" Harvey told with a content grin while she massaged his head. He was feeling amazing and would always ask her for it.

" Because we're fuck buddies." Maria said bluntly and Harvey was grateful that he had his back to her so that she wouldn't witness the hurt look that passed by his face.

" You think that all we have is a mere fuck? " He turned around to look inside of her eyes.

" I don't know. " Maria shrugged and Harvey was opening his mouth to say something to her when her cellphone started to ring.

" Ignore it, we are discussing something important. Well, at least it is important to me, I'm not sure our relationship mean anything to you other than being mere fuck buddies." Harvey told her angrily.

" I'm really sorry right now, I want to discuss this as much as you but this is Jessica's ringtone." Maria told him before running to her phone to answer it and ending the call quickly before passing by the bathroom to tell Harvey : " She wants me in her office in 30 minutes. We can talk about it later, I swear."

And Maria quickly got dressed with Harvey's white shirt and tucked it in a long pencil skirt that hugged her curves and looked professional. She found her classic black Louboutins and quickly applied some lip gloss, concealer, eyeliner and mascara.

Maria ran to Jessica's office because the woman who hired her never called her there before the time she was actually supposed to be there. She was pretty nervous that she may have messed up something but she couldn't remember any possible mistake and always managed to proofread every single file before handling them and, of course, the biggest skeleton in her closet happened just yesterday when Louis made her smoke weed and lie to a man.

Harvey's place was near the firm so she spent less than 5 minutes to get there and went straight to Jessica's office.

" Good morning, Jessica." Maria said after entering the office.

" Good morning, Maria. Have a seat." Jessica told her and the other woman started to get nervous again, she sounded like a mother scolding a kid .

" You called me." Maria said nervously.

" Louis told me what happened at the club." Jessica told the sitting lawyer while she stared at the window.

" I bet he didn't tell you the whole story." Maria said without defending herself yet but mentally calling Louis filho da puta (son of a bitch).

" He told me enough to impress me." Jessica told the lawyer and Maria hat yet to define if it was either good or bad so she waited for her boss to continue " New business is hard. People will promise you the world but until the sign that engagement letter, it means nothing. Now I don't know what you told Tom Keller, but bringing a client at your age, that reminds me of a person." Jessica told her with a smile.

" Who?"

" Myself." Jessica told her with another smile.

Maria barely had time to digest everything that was happening when Louis appeared, followed by Tom Keller, to talk about something in the retainer that Tom pointed out. While Louis spoiled the new client, Maria went to talk with the millionaire.

" I thought you wanted nothing to do with him." Maria said to Tom while Jessica and Louis were busy discussing something and out of their earshot.

" I did. But then, I thought about it. He might not be a very good person, but a little deviousness is the sort of thing you look for in a lawyer. I mean, the other guy I was with, he was too nice. We were buddies. We went to school together. It's time for me to grow up. Get a real shark, you know." Tom told her with his usual light and good natured attitude.

" I had no intention of being that way to get your business." Maria sincerely told him.

" That's exactly why I insisted that you be my point man, woman, in case. I want someone being devious for me, not to me." Maria stared at Louis and Jessica when Tom told her this and the man noticed " What?"

" It's just that Louis would never tell Jessica that I had any part in bringing you here if you hadn't done that." Maria said with a relieved smile.

" Hey, the way I see it, the three of us stick together, we'll make a pretty good team."

" You know what, I have a better idea. I know someone more devious and less creepy than Louis. He can have mercy when it's needed without being made a fool."

" Tell me who is this guy and we can sign right away with him. I trust your judgement."

" Thank you." Maria told him with a smile and made him sign with Harvey.

At night, and after work, she went to Louis' office to confront him. Maria knew that her drug test was fake because she never got drugged in first place, she was nervous because she hated medical tests.

" You lied, the drug test you showed my was fake." Maria barged into Louis' office saying this.

" How did you figure it out?"

" Because I never ever smoked weed or tried out any other possible drug. I was nervous because I hate medical exams. Was this all some kind of test ? You blackmailed me and jeopardize my job just to get what you wanted. I went to the Male's locker room and saw awful things that I wouldn't wish for my biggest enemy to see.I felt bad after smoking that crap and could have died if my reaction was stronger, for what ? Your vanity ?! " Maria said angrily to him.

" Maria, stop. Stop. We all came out ahead, didn't we ? The new client is going to bring us millions. Jessica knows what you're capable of... It's a win-win." Louis told her, trying to calm her down.

" You're right, she knows what I'm capable of, and that's why she hired me in first place. She'll listen to what I say when I tell her exactly what happened." Maria said with a devious smirk, Tom was completely right when he said that a lawyer did have to possess some deviousness.

" But before you do that, it's that time." Louis told her.

" What time ?"

" Pee in a cup time."

" And you know that now I'd fail because of you."

" You could run to mommy and tell her your story, take your chances. Or you can take the test and trust that I will keep it to myself." Louis said with a manipulative tone that made Maria want to throw a punch right on his nose.

" Cute, dear. But, you know, Jessica hired me because I never miss anything important, and, well, I managed to read Peason Hardman drug policy. It turns out that you have to way three months before you can request another test." Maria said with a smile and filled the cup with Louis' soda " Drink up." Maria threw the cup back to him.

Maria was almost leaving when she put on a grin and remembered of what she discussed with Tom Keller.

" Oh, love, I spoke to Tom Keller and he says that he feels he'd be best served with the combination of me and Harvey. Bye." Maria said with a mischievous grin and blew him a kiss.

She finally left the firm and walked a block before meeting Harvey, who was expecting her for their dinner date.

" Good evening, Ray." She told the driver who smiled to her and wished her a good evening too.

" Hey." Maria said with a smile and kissed his lips.

" What took you so long ?" Harvey told her while he caressed her leg and she fastened her seatbelt.

" I was having a nice chat with Louis about yesterday's events. I love it when they take me for granted. Why aren't we on the usual way to that restaurant?" Maria answered with a grin and asked him about their whereabouts since they already had their favorite place.

" Because I have an last issue to fix and we are going to a different restaurant tonight." Harvey told her with a triumphant smile that matched hers.

" Looks like someone also had a great day." Maria commented.

" Let's say that I closed a 400 million dollars deal."

" Eita, porra."

" Oh, and I googled what you said. It meant 'so fucking yummy'. I am happy that you think about my looks the same way I think about yours."

" I will have to give you some basic Portuguese lessons to deal with my cursing and to understand when I'm hitting on you." Maria said with a smile and Harvey reached for her hand with his, he was holding her hand and caressing it with his thumb.

They talked about songs with Ray, during the ride and suddenly the driver stopped somewhere.

" Why are we here ?" Maria asked Harvey who opened the door for her.

" Remember the son of a bitch of that judge, who thinks that I had an affair with his wife during that gala last month ?" Harvey asked her with a smile.

" Hell, yeah. Of course I remember."

" I know you enough to be able to know that you're not here to introduce your girlfriend, who went home with you that day." Maria knew that he wouldn't let something as huge as a judge blackmailing him pass so easily.

" He is the one who invited me here today." Harvey was looking at his watch and looked up to see a guy leaving the courthouse and left the room " And I would never let him know anything about my girlfriend, he could blackmail me by threatening you. That's why you're staying inside of the car."

Maria just sat back to watch their interaction from the window, she would have brought some popcorn to see Harvey smashing the judge if she knew about that.

"Thought you weren't coming." Douchebag said, heading towards Harvey.

"I had to settle a case first." The lawyer answered coolly.

"You have the paperwork we talked about?" Harvey just handed him a envelope and the judge opened it, not expecting what he saw "What is this?"

"It's a copy of the judicial conduct codes. A friend of mine works at the Attorney General's office. We had a nice chat about you. I told him if you were willing to blackmail someone once, chances are you've done it before. He's very anxious to meet you." Maria was holding a laugh at the judge's expression.

"Think you can get away with screwing my wife and then have me investigated ?"

" You actually got it all wrong. I never slept with Lauren, I have a girlfriend and left the gala with her, my girlfriend. But I knew you would never believe me so I kept my mouth shut, the only thing I've done so far is have you investigated. Enjoy your evening, Donald." He said that and went to his car. Maria moved out of eyesight so that Harvey would enter without showing her to Donald.

After the confrontation, they went to a very fancy restaurant to finally talk about everything. Harvey, always the gentleman, opened the door for her and pulled out the chair for her when they were sitting down.

" Looks like we both had an amazing day." Maria told Harvey with a big smile while looking at the menu " We have to order something very alcoholic to celebrate."

" Scotch or wine ?" Harvey asked her.

" You know that I like everything that contains alcohol. Whatever, pick our poison." Maria told him while she browsed around what

The waiter came and Harvey asked for some really expensive wine with an obnoxiously long name and they ordered their plates.

" You know we have to talk." Harvey started.

"Yep." Maria answered coolly.

" What are we ?" Harvey asked her seriously looking right into her eyes.

" Human beings." Maria said with a nervous laugh and Harvey's annoyed expression made her continue " I get nervous whenever I have to talk about my goddman feelings and make some idiotic jokes. Sorry. I think you should start the talk before I make a bigger fool of myself."

" I want more." He said that directly and honestly, his usual Specter way, before elaborating "We were, as you say, fuck buddies. Until we started to do things that cross the fuck buddies' line. I mean, we always sleep together, even when we don't have sex, we hold hands, watch movies, go to the gym... We do couple stuff and I like it."

" I like it either, I fell happy and comfortable, like I'm home, when I'm around you." She said this and Harvey let out the breath that he didn't knew he was holding, he wanted to be with her so damn much that he was unable to measure how much this confession meant to him " I never thought about more with anyone else, but I could envision more with you. We understand each other and enjoy sports equally."

" Though I don't understand why you are so damn crazy about soccer." He said with a loving smile.

" I am the one who do not understand why the hell you are fixated on baseball. " Maria laughed with him and stopped to stare at his eyes passionately " I bet we could make 'more' work."

" We can. So what are we ?" Harvey asked her.

" You're my boyfriend then. But I think lover is sexier."

" I can live with both." Harvey

" Nope, you can live with me and that's it." Maria said playfully.

" Oh, I noticed how jealous you can get of me. Specially when-" Harvey stopped talking when the waiter came with their wine.

" Thank you." Maria thanked the waiter who took too long looking at her as a way of getting rid of him without losing her classy image.

" The little fucker." Harvey said it about the lawyer.

" You are as jealous of me as I am of you." Maria laughed at this.

" Cheers. Be not immortal, since it is flame..."

" But be infinite while it lasts. Cheers." Maria completed the poem and they clicked glasses " I would never take you for a Vinicius de Moraes fan. Actually, I would, he was a seducer."

" I'm the seducer ? The waiter was ogling you as if you were Scarlett O'hara in Twelve Oaks with a low cut dress. "

" You got a new enemy because a guy's wife hit on you during that gala."

" Touché." Harvey smiled to her.

" Now tell me everything about your fight with judge asshole."

And Harvey told her every single detail of the fight, then he asked about her confrontation with Louis. They could spend the whole night talking nonstop but always ended up bickering about soccer and baseball. They began their relationship as mere lovers but their connection and friendship grew, in those 2 months, to the point that they couldn't be anything less than soulmates.


	3. Chapter 3

A month after agreeing to date Harvey, Maria was held back at work but unlike poor Mike, who was being overworked by Harvey at the time the Harvard quizz happend, she was drinking a beer and eating some Chinese while competing against Seth. Louis was the one asking those questions and she could easily see that he wanted Seth to win so damn badly.

"What is the oldest book in the Harvard library collection?" Louis asked them quickly.

"The Bible." Maria said quickly.

"Wrong. The Gutenberg Bible." Louis corrected her and looked at him in disbelief.

"Everyone knows it's the Gutenberg Bible." Maria almost rolled her eyes after this.

"Yes, but you didn't say it. The rules dictate you must be precise, as the law is a very precise endeavor." Louis said and made Maria take a long sip of beer to avoid hitting him and losing her job.

"How many U.S. pr-" Lluis started to ask but Maria cut him off.

"Eight."

" That's not fair, you didn't even finish the question."

"And yet it's right. The question was gonna be "How many U.S. presidents attended Harvard?" You want names? So that I can as precise as the law" Maria said this calmly and ate some of her food.

"No, we get it." Louis dismissed her and she smirked.

" Final round. Maria ahead by one. One question each. Points are double." Louis explained the rules to them.

"Double 'cause he wants to keep you in the game, Seth." Maria said with a malicious smirk.

"Bring it on, Martin. I bleed crimson."

"Oh, venomous banter. This is adorable, I love it." Louis statement made Maria stop picking on Seth just to stop doing something that he found adorable.

" Maria, where do you get Square pizza? "

" Pinocchio's. You are actually kidding about it, right ? That's the question?!" Maria asked wide eyed at how easy the question was.

" No, I'm serious. Now the points to the question are quadruple."

" So if I get this right I win ?"

"Yeah." Louis said and Maria lost her cool.

" Que diabos? You're making this up so that he can win, you know that I already won."

" I was expecting that a girl like you would stick to salad." Louis said with a smile that made her want to punch him before asking Seth the easiest question out there." How many current U.S. Supreme Court Justices are from our Alma mater?"

" Five." Seth answered and Louis agreed with him and everyone who had their bets on him cheered. Actually, most people had their bets on Seth in the beginning, they just started to place their bets on Maria because she was answering everything right.

" Got anything to say, Martin ?" Seth asked her with a mocking tone.

" Other than the fact that your win was completely arbitrary, yeah. Your answer is wrong." Maria mocked back and took a sip of her beer, mimicking that she was sipping some tea.

"Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, Kagan." Louis numbered them to Maria but she added someone.

"Ginsberg."

"Ruth Bader Ginsberg went to Columbia." Seth corrected her like a guy afraid of losing would.

"She graduated from Columbia, after she attended Harvard for two question was phrased "how many justices were from Harvard?" " Maria pointed , she was on the Harvard Law Review. And when she arrived at Columbia as a transfer, she was from Harvard. The rules dictate that you must be precise, as the law is a precise endeavor." Maria said this and the room erupted in applause, even the ones who set their bets on Seth had to applaud how bright that was.

The problem was that her award was a pro bono case and she was drowning in other works.

Maria was just gathering her things to leave when Jessica stopped her.

" Maria, hello. I want you to be with Harvey in Quentin Sainz's case, you need to make sure that he does everything in his power to defend Sainz."

" Yes, sure. But I don't wanna be your spy, Jessica. I don't want to meddle in anyone's work for you."

" I appreciate your loyalty but it's also personal." Jessica confided on her.

" Personal? Personal how ?" Maria asked nervously, Jessica already knew about her and Harvey?!

" I used to be married with him." Jessica told her truly.

"Oh, okay. I will tell you how things are going but I won't meddle. My only condition is that Harvey knows that you want me to keep an eye on him. Louis already hates me, I don't want another partner hating my guts."

" Deal. I will tell him that tomorrow."

" Thanks, good night." Maria grabbed her bag from her cubicle and went to the elevator.

Harvey was expecting her inside of his office and just left when he received her message on his phone saying that she was leaving. They met in front of the elevator doors and got in together into a full elevator, they both went to the back and had their backs on the wall.

Maria was composed and professional until she felt Harvey's hand on her ass, he was caressing her behind with at least 8 other people in the same elevator. Maria stifled a laugh and Harvey looked at her with a happy look on his eyes.

" You almost got us caught." Harvey muttered to Maria when they left the elevator.

" You were the one with a hand up in my ass." Maria smirked " My place ?"

" Mine." Harvey told her while they walked a little to the place they agreed to meet up with Ray, it was located 2 blocks away from the firm and nobody who worked with them was near.

" You forgot that I have a cat to feed ?" Maria asked him.

" Nope. I know." He said with a smile and pecked her lips before opening the door to her.

They were inside of Harvey's car and in the middle seat was Kitty's cat carrier with said cat inside of it. Maria was so happy at seeing her cat that she pulled her out of the cat carrier and held the cat on her lap.

" She could spend the night at my place. I bought some cat stuff for her to keep there." Harvey explained it to Maria and she kissed his lips multiple times.

" You are amazing." Maria gave him a huge smile and kissed his cheek before her cat tried to scratch him.

" How did you manage to take her? She hates you." Maria asked Harvey, who pointed to Ray.

" Ray was the one who got her."

" How was it, Ray ?" Maria asked the driver who laughed.

" She loved me." Ray commented and told them how well she received him.

" I think she hates the fact that she isn't the center of my attentions anymore." Maria scratched the cat head and even Harvey could hear it purring.

They arrived in Harvey's place and Maria finally let go of her cat. Before letting Kitty run around the penthouse, she closed the balcony doors while Harvey turned the AC on.

" Wine?" Harvey asked her from the kitchen.

" You know that I'm always up for some wine." Maria commented it and went to Harvey's room to change into something more comfortable aka one of his shirts. This time she was wearing one t-shirt that was part of his pajamas.

" You are wearing a piece of my pajamas." Harvey commented on the doorway.

" I know. But it's a win-win situation, I get to wear a comfy shirt and you will be shirtless showing how hot you are."

" And what is in it for me other than being harassed by you ?" Harvey asked her with a small smile.

Maria took his hand on hers and guided it under the shirt she was wearing. She put his hand on her chest and whispered in his ear : " You know that I don't wear a bra at home."

Harvey's other hand went to the same spot and he was caressing her perfectly erect and round breasts while kissing her neck, making a moan come out of her mouth. He carried her to the bed and pinned her down before kissing her. He only lifted her choice of shirt to give him a better access to her tights and pulled his pants down.

Maria was kissing his lips hungrily and wanted him to enter her badly. He was teasing her, caressing and squeezing her ass before he abruptly stopped.

" What?" Maria asked Harvey who was staring at the nightstand

" Look." Harvey made her turn to look at her cat, whose attentions were totally turned to what they were doing.

" Really? Haven't you had anybody watch before?" Maria asked with a laugh.

" No." Harvey answered quickly.

"Neither did I, I was just trying to make it less awkward. It's weird, look at how attentive she is, like an owl." The cat was wide eyed staring at them.

" We should just drink our wine while I'm prepare something for us to eat." Harvey fixed himself while Maria did the same.

" Agreed." Maria followed him quickly to the kitchen, where he poured two glasses of wine.

" Your cat is batshit crazy." Harvey took a sip of his wine and went to the couch, where Maria curled up on his side like a cat and also drank her wine.

" She's lovely, she's just jealous that we were playing with each other instead of playing with her." She said in a rational way.

" Doesn't stop being creepy." Harvey commented while he caressed Maria's hair "Stupid cat. Hope she doesn't scratch my stuff."

" Impossible, her nails are trimmed and she uses soft paws."

" She uses what ?" Harvey asked her again and she got up and went to his bedroom to get the topic of their conversation.

The cat was kneading in the spot where Maria used to sleep in. She carefully grabbed the cat and went back to the living room. She showed the cat's paw to Harvey.

" It's a nail cap." Maria got her glass from the counter and went back to her spot in Harvey's arms, curled like a ball.

" Weird but great. Looks like she's using nail polish." Harvey petted the cat's head but it hissed at him and ran away " She hates me. Stupid cat."

" She hates you because you have my attention." Maria poured more wine into her glass.

" I will correct what I said. It's not stupid cat, it's annoying cat." Harvey went back to run his hand trough her hair.

" If you keep caressing my head, I'm gonna fall asleep." Maria murmured.

" Sleep. I can carry you to the bedroom." Harvey told her while he softly touched

" Think about your arm, old man." Maria said this before dozing off.

" Why did I tell you about that?" Harvey asked with a low tone and smiled at her peaceful face, it was the quietest she could ever be.

In the morning, Maria woke up before Harvey and realized that he really carried her to the bedroom. She didn't even realize when he did it. She went to the kitchen to make some breakfast for them. She turned the coffee maker on for Harvey and put some erva matte inside of the teamaker for herself.

She was completely lost about what to do for them since she would meet the client in a coffee shop and would probably grab some cupcake for herself. She decides to make a tuna omelette for her and Harvey, knowing that he would also eat something outside the office.

She finished everything in less than 15 minutes and went back to the maste bedroom to wake Harvey up. She lied next to him again and stroked his broad shoulder and defined chest, he was already waking up with a small smile on his face. Maria decided to climb on top of him and kiss his neck.

" Morning." Harvey said with a sleepy voice and let her seduce him.

" Morning. Hungry?" Maria asked him.

" Yeah." Harvey replied and she moved to get off him but he held her back by her waist.

" I made breakfast."

" I'm hungry for the dessert." Harvey commented with a playful smile and kissed her lips.

" You can have my cherry pie." Maria said with a wicked smile and straddled him again. Harvey quickly changed their position so that he would be on top of her and she yelped at the sudden movement.

" I'd love to have a taste." He told her while they were face to face with him on top of her. He gently opened her legs and trailed small kissed till he reached her panties and took them off before actually tasting her. Maria was gripping the sheets with both hands and moaning while he played with her. She was moaning louder and louder till she reached her climax.

" As much as I love the way tasted my cherry pie, I believe that this pie needs to be filled up with something delicious." Maria said this while she took her pajamas aka Harvey's shirt off.

" I couldn't agree more." Harvey took his pants off and filled her up with his length while holding her hands next to her head. They were rough and fast this time, Harvey was dominating her while she felt the pleasure from his ministrations and wrapped her legs around him, holding him deeply inside of her. They came together after some rough and passionate lovemaking and they collapsed on the bed side by side.

" I made breakfast. " Maria said with a breathless voice.

" Still hungry?" Harvey asked her and she rolled over him.

" Always." Maria said with a smile and kissed his lips " I didn't even realize when you put me in bed."

" You are very light. It was easy." Harvey stopped whatever he was saying and pointed to something. Maria turned around to look and saw her cat facing them from the closet's door.

" I forgot that she was here." Maria said and patted the bed to call the cat. The furball ran to her side and curled up on her.

" No pussycats on the bed." Harvey told Maria, who was lovingly caressing the furball.

" To get the pussy, you need to accept the cat." Maria replied with a raised eyebrow. Harvey laughed along with her and playfully threw his hands up in a sign of being defeated.

" Let's get ready for work." Harvey got up and headed to the kitchen to eat their breakfast.

" I'm not going straight to work today, I'm meeting a client." Maria said it while she got the omelette from the pan.

"Oooh, a client. Such a grown up lawyer." Harvey said playfully while he set the table " It's that pro bono case ?"

" Yep, housing court." Maria served them and they started to eat.

" It's easy, no one loses in housing court."

" Do not underestimate my talent of making a huge mess of easy stuff." Maria murmured.

" You're a great lawyer, otherwise jessica wouldn't hire you. And it's housing court, no one loses there. Even your grandma could win."

"My grandma is dead, just like I will be if I lose this case." Maria said nervously and went to the shower. She was an overachiever by nature, she hated losing and didn't take that well. Her competitive nature was bigger than her rational or emotional side. She was thinking about her case so much that she forgot about her surroundings, she yelped when Harvey appeared out of nowhere behind her in his huge shower.

" Calm down. It's a pro bono case, even if you win it won't mean that much. " Harvey massaged her shoulder while the water ran over their bodies.

" Thanks. " Maria smiled and kissed " Let me wash your hair ?"

" You are obsessed with heads." Harvey murmured while she shampooed his head.

" I am, you must admit that I give amazing head jobs." She whispered the last part in his ear and he could fell her breath.

" You are crazy and perv." Harvey commented this and squeezed her ass.

" No more than you." She squeezed his ass back and pulled him under the shower to rinse his hair. They left the shower together.

They got dressed and, as usual, Harvey worn a three piece suit. Maria was wearing a cute Gucci tweed pencil skirt with a matching blazer and some simple white blouse underneath, for shoes she worn a simple black Louboutins.

" I finally found someone who spends more than me with clothes." Harvey commented with a smile after seeing her attire.

" Most of this comes for free. I am friends with fashion designers and fashion editors. I just need to go to them and grab whatever I'd like from the past collections." Maria commented " That and I still have some savings from back when I modelled. I bough some apartments here and in Brazil so every month I earn more money with those rents than working." Maria told him while she applied some makeup.

" See? You are amazing, winning or losing this case can't take your awesomeness away from you." Harvey smirked and pecked her lips before she applied her beloved red lipstick.

" You are cute." Maria said with a huge smile " The world should know what a softie you are on the inside."

" Softie ? I'm hard." Harvey replied with his defensive tone. Maria passed by him and caressed his crotch with her hand before replying.

" No, you're not." Maria whispered on his ear and caressed his crotch again " Oh, now you are. Such a pity that we can't be late for work." She teased him and went to the elevator.

" Tease. You know that I will get back at you for this tonight." Harvey followed her into the elevator and they descended.

" I'm looking forward to it." Maria said with a smirk and they left together.

Meanwhile, Harvey went to the firm and, before he could even properly sit down and work, Jessica barged in saying that he forgot her ex's case. He commented to her that he wouldn't take it, claiming that his ex-wife, being his managing partner, would hamstring his actions and annoy him.

"I'm sorry it's so late to give you a wedding gift, but it's hard to be on time when I never knew you were married." Harvey told her and passed her a beautifully wrapped gift box.

"Are you seeing anyone, Harvey?"

"Hm? Yes, uh, no "

"You don't wanna tell me, and I don't really care. Even though I know that you are seeing someone, you are less unlikable than usual plus you have a hickey." Jessica commented and pointed to his neck. Harvey's reaction said it all, his hand went straight to his neck searching for it.

" You're lying, I have no hickey." Harvey told her in disbelief "But now you just proved your theory."

"You don't wanna tell me, and I don't really care. Because you and I share the same trait of keeping our personal lives personal."

"You were married. I'm dating, yet. When I get married I will invite you though you didn't do the same."

"It happened when you were at Harvard, didn't work out. We were too dedicated to our careers, and that's all I'm going to say about it. And, you must be completely smitten for not dismissing the idea of a wedding. You didn't even say 'if', you said 'when' " Jessica commented with a small smile.

" If Quentin came to you looking for someone to trust him, why aren't you handling this case yourself?" Harvey asked her, still suspicious about taking this case.

"That's none of your concern. Well, I'm not asking you that as your colleague, I'm asking you as Quentin's attorney." Harvey did have a point and it made Jessica answer.

"After Quentin and I separated, he started seeing one of his research consultants. Lisa. They're still together. But he never married her. She doesn't want me on the case."

"Oh, terrific. You're sticking me with a losing case, and a girlfriend who isn't gonna like me anymore than she likes you.

"Well, I'm sure it's not the first time someone hasn't liked you, Harvey. I am surprised you found a girlfriend." Jessica said with a smirk.

" Who doesn't like me ?"

"Oh, I almost forgot. I know that you're obsessed with that Mike boy but you should settle your attention towards Maria either."

" Maria ? Maria Martin ? Yes, of course I can work more with her." Harvey commented with a small smirk.

" Not because of her looks. She was first of her class. " Jessica rolled her eyes " I admit that I wanted to hamstring you, so I told her to be on this case to tell me what you planned to do. She refused. Actually, she managed to say no without being insubordinate, she simply said that she would only spy on you if you knew. She simply played with the definition of spying and refused. She is a diplomat and very loyal."

" Oh, no. Jessica Pearson is making another mini-Jessica. The world can only handle one of you." Harvey smirked before Jessica left. He smiled to himself thinking about what a strong and faithful woman Maria was showing herself to be. It made him fall in love for her even more than he already had.

Maria arrived at the cafe and heard her client's story, he told her that Karinsk has been his landlord for two years and since then many serious problems happened to his apartment. She found it extremely suspicious but wouldn't voice it yet.

"Why don't you just move?" Maria asked him.

"It's the only place I've ever known. I don't have any brothers or sisters. My parents... Not with me anymore. I'm not leaving the one connection I have to them." He told Maria and she felt sympathy towards him for that.

" You said that you weren't sleeping. Why?" Maria asked him.

" Bedbugs. My place is literally crawling with them. Could you sleep knowing the minute you turn out the light, they're coming for you? No, I couldn't. Well, Karinski won't do anything about it without proof, and I can't get someone from the city down to verify they're there"

" Don't worry, I can." Maria told him before leaving to fix this issue.

Some time later, Maria appeared at Pearson Hardman and found Harvey and Mike waiting for her at the entrance. Donna sent her a message that told her that Harvey wanted her in this case. She arrived wearing a periwinkle jumpsuit and looking really elegant.

" You're late." Harvey pointed out, Maria was thankful that he was a very professional guy that wouldn't take it easy on her just because they were dating.

" It was Louis' pro bono, I went -" Maria tried to explain but he cut her off.

" Hey. You're not wearing the same clothes that you left home with." Harvey pointed out. Mike, being the smart person that he was, had to question how did he knew that.

" But she didn't came to the firm in the morning." Mike state as a matter of fact.

" But Donna was talking about my Gucci suit to everyone. I sent her a picture." Maria showed him a random picture of herself in a suit from her phone " Frank's place was infested with bed bugs. I was feeling them crawling on me and had to change."

" I wanted to see what made it so damn special to have Donna gushing about it all damn morning. And, you tracked bedbugs into the firm?"

" Your suits are more expensive than that. You brought bedbugs to the firm? Mike pointed out again and asked Maria with the same expression that Harvey worn about the bedbugs. Maria was getting apprehensive and had to change the subject.

" Of course not." Maria defended herself.

" You walked in there naked ?" Harvey asked her with a wiggle of his eyebrows .

"Yes. And I went to your office to take some naked pictures while bending over your desk." Maria commented and Mike looked at her wide eyed " Don't worry Mike, I also took some naked pictures while sprawled over your cubicle. I asked a friend of mine who works at Vogue to get me something to wear, he delivered it to Donna, who brought it to downstairs' ladies room. Get your mind of the gutter, gentleman." She smirked at their open mouthed reactions and went to the car.

" I can't help envisioning it. You described a dreamy situation." Harvey flirted and Mike ignored it because he had seen Harvey acting like this towards other woman.

They arrived at the meeting and shook hands. Well, the travesty of a llawyer shook hands with Harvey and Quentin, completely ignored Mike and kissed Maria's hand. Maria made sure to scrub her hand on her jumpsuit after being kissed by the enemy while Harvey looked even more pissed than before. Harvey called the whole thing a shakedown and made an offer, showing him the check.

Mike corrected his calculations and gave him the right number before Colin Church called on drama to ask for 250 million dollars and Quentin got up very angry, saying that it was outrageous and the travesty of a lawyer just wanted to bankrupt his company.

The three lawyers went back to the firm and Harvey was throwing a bunch of work into the hands of Mike and Maria.

"Maria, weren't you a pre-med student back in Brazil."

" I actually spent a year of my life in med school while studying to the LSATs"

" Great. Let's see just how real his clients' liver problems are. And if they are real, we suggest they're from the disease itself, or they took the wrong dose, or they took a cocktail of combined drugs."

" I have housing court in the morning." Maria tried to save herself but Harvey, being an annoying boss, just dismissed it.

"It's housing court, anyone wins there. Your cat could win if it knew how to speak." Harvey commented and then turned to Mike, asking him to look for Quentin's company financials.

Jessica stormed in and Maria knew that the smartest move she could make was running away and doing what Harvey told her to do at home while Jessica fought with Harvey and threw heavy paperwork over Mike. She passed by Rachel and talked to her best friend.

" Rachel, save meeeee." Maria pleaded.

" I am completely busy and with tons of paperwork to take care of. Go away."

" I love you. Plus, I have my first trial tomorrow and I'm nervous. Housing court." Maria tried again.

" Maria, calm down. You always get stressed out before a test or a trial to completely rock it at the end. Even I can win in housing court. Love the jumpsuit. We can celebrate your first victory after your trial. Bye." Rachel commented and ran away with her paperwork.

Maria went back to her place to work and realized that everything was too quiet. She forgot Kitty at Harvey's place and had to get back there. She packed another duffle bag with something to wear tomorrow for work and called Harvey.

"Hey." Harvey said on the phone after answering her call.

" Hey. Are you at your place? I think I forgot something."

" No, I'm coming home yet. You're at your place, since you asked me this. I can pick you up right now, I'm close to you place, come and bring a change of clothing."

" I know. It's already packed." Maria said with a laugh.

" You should just live with me already." Harvey said seriously and Maria's laugh stopped.

"What?"

" I'm serious." Harvey said this simply and hung up.

Harvey actually wanted to talk with Maria about moving in together for quite some time, they rarely slept apart nowadays and even her cat was captive at his place now. They had a great routine together and he really looked forward spending every single day by her side. It was the next logical step of their relationship and he was ready for it as long as it was with her and only her.

He quickly came to her apartment and opened the door, knowing to well that she never locked it. She was sitting on the couch, working on the case while furiously typing on her laptop.

"Oi." Maria jumped a little, she barely realized Harvey coming in " And that's why you should lock the door."

" Come on, who would try to open this door instead of any other of the 49 other ones?" Maria made a point.

" Who would unlock the only unlocked door?"

" A neighbor would realize that some weirdo is trying to force open the door before that." Maria said playfully " I looked some medical histories and well. Things are not looking so good."

" Why?"

" I hated pharmacology but with the little knowledge that I still have, the Amylinx is making some damage. Literature on the liver pathology in ALS has existed for over a half century, when you're creating a med you must look up to it. Hepatic steatosis, the fatty liver, has been known to occur in 76% of all ALS patients. And, some of the components of the Amylinx are very similar in molecular configuration to asteroids, meaning that they might cause some liver damage in at least 76% of ALS patients." Maria commented and showed him what she found out.

" Shit."

" Yep, shit. We must rely on the fact that the company is financially stable, otherwise it will look like a fraud. If I, a person who lacks medical knowledge, found out about that, it's obvious that anyone responsible for that drug knew that. My work here is done. Here, boss." Maria organized the papers before putting them back on the paste that she handled to Harvey.

" So we can have some fun tonight ?" Harvey asked her with a small smirk.

" Nope, I must train for housing court tomorrow. " Maria showed him another file that she was taking with her.

"Everyone wins in housing court." Harvey picked up her duffle bag to her while she turned the light off to leave "Please, lock the door before we leave."

" Okay, okay. As long as you help me rehearse tomorrow's trial." Maria locked the door and followed him to his car.

She was picking some music for them to hear and stopped on a Queen's song.

"No, no, no." Harvey told her, shaking his head.

" What?"

" Queen isn't allowed inside of this car or anywhere near my earshot."

" First of all, I'm inside of this car and usually near your earshot. You already allow a queen into your life, honey. Second, you are insane for thinking that Freddie's voice isn't iconic."

" I don't like anyone who needs eyeliner to be taken seriously."

" Now you're lying, you have Prince records." Maria pointed out.

" Still not liking Queen." Harvey refused to reason about this.

" Dear lord, what have I gotten myself into? Am I really dating a guy who hates Queen?"

" You hate the Beatles."

" They are purely commercial."

" Okay, we must make a deal to keep this relationship healthy. I am free to hate Queen as long as you hate The Beatles." Harvey tried to settle this matter.

Harvey was parking his car inside of the condo's garage while saying this.

" Are we really settling this ?" Maria asked in disbelief.

" I'm the best closer in New York, what do you expect." Harvey left the car and opened her door for her before grabbing her duffle bag from the backseat.

" I can settle it if you add that you're helping me rehearse court with you."

" Only if you add sex laters."

" Deal. We would have sex no matter what, it's hard to resist your charms." Maria commented with a small smirk.

They went to the personal elevator and went straight to Harvey's apartment. Maria's cat, Kitty, ran to her arms as soon as she stepped out of the elevator. She grabbed her cat and went to Harvey's room to have a quick shower and change into one of his shirts aka her pajamas.

" Japanese ?" Harvey yelled from the bedroom's doorway.

" Yeah. No av-" Maria started to say but he completed her sentence.

" No avocado and no shrimp, I know." Harvey completed her sentence and called their favorite sushi place to order some food and also went to the bathroom to take a quick shower, Maria was already in the bedroom, comfortably dressed and rubbing some moisturizer on her long legs.

" Lovely sight." Harvey commented after leaving the shower, wearing andonly a towel around his waist, he wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her into a hug from behind. Maria rested her head on his shoulder and he kissed her head.

She turned around and kissed his lips, things were getting heated up but Harvey stopped them.

" You wanted to rehearse the trial, come on." He commented before getting dressed into his pajama pants, he was used by now to walk around shirtless since Maria usually worn his shirts and a camisole.

" Obaaa." Maria exclaimed in Portuguese and passed the files to Harvey.

They went to the living room and Maria sat in a chair, put her cat on the chair next to her and Harvey was on the couch mimicking the judge.

" If it pleases the court-" Maria got up and started but Harvey interrupeted her.

" No, don't speak unless the judge directly speak to you. Don't you ever say what pleases the court, It pleases the court to decide who speaks and when." Harvey corrected her and she sat back down "Kitty is behaving better than you and she is a chat."

" Oh, shut up." Maria said playfully and stuck her tongue out.

" Do not tell the judge to shut up nor show your tongue to it." Harvey told her playfully and laughed.

" It? You call the judge it? Not him or her?" Maria asked with a laugh " Perfect."

" Just speak when the judge calls for the counselor."

" Anything else?"

" When the judge bangs the gavel you stop talking to it, no matter if you lost or not."

"Okay, got it."

" That's it."

" Only this ?"

" I've seen your notes on the case, you have what you need to make a point. All you need now is to know how to behave when you're facing a judge."

" Thanks."

" I hate housing court. Too easy." Harvey gave the files back to Maria along with a glass of wine. She left the files on the chair she was sitting on and went to Harvey's waiting arms.

" Oh, no. You gave me white wine, it means you want to talk." Maria commented and took a sip of the wine.

" What? We never drank white wine before."

" I know, but I know that you wanted to talk. So, let's talk."

" Move in with me." Harvey went straight to the point.

" Isn't it a little to quick, I mean. We've been dating for 3 months."

" We always sleep together, I can count the times we slept apart on my fingers. You have total access to my place, the elevator code is you birthday number 0521. I have the keys to your place, eve though they are useless since the door is never properly locked. Even your cat has been living is here. Plus, I want to wake up next to you every single day." Harvey asked her with a small smile and squeezed her in a loving way.

" No." Maria said simply, Harvey's smile dropped and he looked really disappointed.

" Why?" He asked her with a very hurt expression on his face.

" Because, I don't like you." She looked at his crestfallen face and completed: "I'm kidding, yes, I will move in with you. I said that I didn't because I didn't want you to have that so easily." Maria said with a smile.

" You little -" Harvey said before tickling her waist and making her laugh.

" At least you have a huge closet that fits most of my stuff." Maria stopped laughing and commented.

" I don't think all of your shoes will fit."

" It's a lot but it fits." Maria commented, looking down at his crotch.

" Lord, you have the talent of making everything have a double meaning." Harvey said before laughing " Are you always thinking of sexual innuendos ?"

" Well, when I'm with you they just come naturally." Maria said with a small smirk and she moved to sit on his lap and kiss his lips.

Harvey's hands travelled from her waist to her butt, under the shirt she borrowed from him, and he deepened the kiss. Maria's hands were caressing his chest and he did the same to her, his hands were now caressing her nipples, he stopped them and pulled the shirt of her head before laying her down on the couch to kiss her breasts. Maria was breathing heavily and laying under him, wearing only her thin lace panties.

As always, they were interrupted by the doorbell. The delivery guy arrived in the most inappropriate time and stopped them.

" Shit." Harvey cursed and got up

" Merda." Maria also cursed but in her own special way " What about this. You answer the door while I prepare a special bath for us." She offered and pecked his lips before running to his bedroom.

" Talented, Brilliant, Incredible, Amazing, Showstopping, Spectacular, Never The Same, Totally Unique, Completely Not Ever Been Done Before."

Maria ran to the master bathroom to get their bath ready, the bathtub was huge and would fit them perfectly.

" Dinner is ready!" Harvey exclaimed.

" Yay." Maria came back to the kitchen, she put her shirt back on before sitting next to him and grabbing her sticks.

" I asked for some shrimp for me." Harvey showed her some sushis with shrimp over them.

" You're brushing your teeth before kissing me again."

" Are you allergic or something?"

" I'm physiologically allergic. I hate it, never tried it before but I hate it." Maria scrunched her nose with a disgusted expression.

" So you're against experimenting new stuff?" Harvey asked with a malicious smirk.

" About food, yeah. About sex with you, no."

" Great." Harvey said with a smirk that made Maria blush.

They ate their food and drank their wine while talking about work. Maria told him that she trusted Jessica's judgement but that it may be biased since she used to be married to Quentin, Harvey completely agreed and said that he would look into it.

" Wanna meet my parents ?" Maria asked Harvey out of the blue.

" What? I don't know. Will they hate me ?"

" My mom will love you for finally making me commit fo something not work related. My dad will hate you no matter what, he is going to make you really uncomfortable with tricky questions about me, all you need to do is reassure him that you care about me."

" Okay. I would introduce you to my parents but they are dead."

" Harvey, your mother is alive."

" She's dead to me."

" Don't act like this. My grandmother died when I was 18, she spent the whole summer vacation at my place, we had tons of fun together. My parents invited her to live with us, she just wanted to go back to her place to fix everything. I fought with her about something so damn dumb that I do not remember before she left, knowing that when she came back we would be okay. She was ran over by a car and instantly died the day before coming to live with us but in that same day I made her a call, apologized and told her how much I loved her. I don't know what I would have done if she died while mad at me."

" She did something unforgivable."

" You don't have to tell me what she did." Maria got up and held his face her hands.

" I will someday, probably when we get really drunk and start spilling our life sorrows." Harvey commented before she pecked his lips and caressed his head.

" Yep. Now let's focus on the steaming bath that's waiting for us."

" You are perfect." Harvey told her with a smile.

" I'm not, you are. " Maria smiled and kissed his neck " I really enjoy being taller than you, so that's how Jessica must feel."

" Take that back." Harvey warned her in a playfull manner, he got up and stood taller than her now.

" Nope. Make me."

" I will." He said with a smile and pulled her over his shoulder in a swift motion. She yelped at the sudden movement but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Harvey carried her to the bathroom and pulled her down near the tub. He kissed her lips and caressed her body, she responded with vigour, as always.

" Let's get it while it's burning hot." Harvey commented and took of his pants before accommodating himself inside of the

" It is hot indeed." Maria commented, ogling Harvey's body.

Harvey simply smirked to her and she quickly got naked to follow him.

Maria ran to court to her first case ever, feeling nervous but hopeful that maybe it would possibly work. Harvey managed to calm her down, somehow.

"So how does this usually work?" Frank asked her, he looked as nervous as she felt.

" We simply have to wait till the judge talks to us and give him what he asks for." Maria commented with a small smile.

" Great, you know what you're doing."

" I hope so. It's my first case all by myself."

" This is your first time? I'm your first?" Karinsk's lawyer, a very elegant woman provoked Maria.

" It may be my first but I'm very experienced." Maria smirked back. She was feeling nervous but knew that she couldn't look nervous.

"We're talking about $4,000 in withheld rent." The judge spoke.

"$4,000. Yes, your honor." Viven Tanaka, the other lawyer, said.

"Why hasn't he paid, counselor?" The judge asked Maria, who promptly answered, looking quite calm and confident.

" Bedbugs, your honor. I have receipts that show my client's financial outlay to rectify the problem far exceeds the amount."

"Housing department certified the presence of bedbugs?" The judge asked her.

" Yes, your honor."

"Abatement ?" Maria handled the files to the judge.

" Your honor, this is an eviction hearing. The pertinent question is not habitability, but whether or not rent has been paid."

"Actually, city code states that rent may be withheld if the warranty of habitability is breached."

"Mm. In that case, we request to see the checks Mr. Ross' client has placed in escrow. Pending the outcome of a rent abatement hearing."

" It is the accepted practice. And therefore binding in this courtroom." The judge said.

"Your client did put money in escrow, I assume." Tanaka told Maria, who looked at Frank, praying that he had but knowing that he didn't have any money left.

"I didn't have any money left-" Frank said and Maria closed her eyes, knowing that they would lose it.

"Eviction upheld." The judge banged the gavel and Maria knew that she lost.

Maria was pissed off and had to drink a mimosa before going back to the office. She was thinking that it was just great that Louis already hated her, now he had an excuse to annoy her.

She calmly went back the office and sat by her cubicle.

"You know what happens to pitchers when they get shelled in rookie league, Maria? You think they make it to the bigs? Or do they just end up on some sad American legion team of has-beens?"

" I know I lost but I don't need to get your little metaphor, I hate baseball." Maria commented without taking her eyes off the screen " I'm only sorry that right now I have some research to do for Harvey, excuse me."

" Remember when you stole that client I had you bring in? That was a good time for you, wasn't it? See, I gave you a nothing case so that when you did win it would still do nothing for your career. But I still expected you to win. So yeah, I guess... Go back to your research. Maybe that is your niche." Louis just had to humiliate her a little bit more today.

" Porra de jurisprudência americana." She cursed the american law in Portuguese.

Did she feel like curling up on the bathroom floor and crying her eyes out ? Yep. Would she give this victory to Louis Desgraçado Litt? Nope. Would she hate the jurisprudence forever ? Yep.

Maria just kept working and saw Harvey coming back to the office with a coffee mug after knowing that he also lost in court from Donna's message.

" Mr. Specter, it's kind of ironic, isn't it ? You and I both lost in court today. " Maria commented.

" You lost ? After I what I told you last night ? In housing court ? People win there without lawyers. "

" He had one, Tanaka. And she violently popped my rookie cherry. I feel so damn low that I could kiss Louis. "

" Vivien Tanaka ?"

" Yep, this demon. Loved her shoes, hated her. Do you know from what kind of hellhole she came from? And I also lost because of the American law."

" Vivien Tanaka represents half the high-rises in Manhattan. This isn't a petty rent dispute. Your guy's going condo."

"Perfect. Forcing Frank out for conversion is harassment, I can go after him for that." Maria was hopeful once again.

"No, you wanna take down Vivien, you better go in there with more than just one client. You show the pattern, the settlement goes up. If they did this to him, I guarantee they've done this to others."

" So I just have to find some of Frank's neighbors ?"

" Think bigger."

" Bigger how ?" Maria asked.

" You are great handling big things, you will know when it's big enough." Harvey commented with a sexual innuendo and went to his office.

Around lunchtime, she went to Rachel's office to talk about her beautiful and tragic failure before leaving to complete the research about Karinsk that she started.

" I failed. I was so damn humiliated that I can't even say good morning to you, I don't know what's good about life anymore." Maria said the minute she sat inside of Rachel's office.

" Oh, I'm sorry. But how ? I mean, you're an amazing lawyer. How did you lose in housing court?"

" Because I forgot that most americans courts apply the accepted practice into their courtrooms. Damn it, I never wanted to shred my green card so damn bad." Maria hit her head on Rachel's desk.

" Yeah, you lost. But it was just a pro bono case, not enough reason to leave the country. Calm down." Rachel tried to tell her.

" But if I lost this damned pro bono case, how the hell can I win huge cases to be rich and sustain my expensive tastes ?"

" By learning from mistakes like this one."

" You're so damn wise. I love you." Maria said with a small smile.

" Love you too. Tough you are a freaking drama queen." Rachel commented playfully " If you were in my shoes and failed multiple times to get into law school you'd have killed yourself by now."

" Don't say it. You are fantastic, you just get nervous."

" Thanks. I'm pathetic."

" We are pathetic. Come on, I lost in fucking housing court." Maria said with a laugh, making Rachel laugh along with her " I missed our friendship, I've been so damn busy that I barely had time for you, sorry. I'm a bitch."

" It's okay, work is killing me either. Tough you still a bitch, but a bad bitch who doesn't take a loss before fighting."

" Damn, by the way. I have to go. Bye." Maria ran off the firm to meet Karinsk's new condo.

Maria skipped lunch and went to Karinsk's new condo to find out who used to live there.

" Hello, I am here to see some of the new units." Maria said to the sales agent that was responsible for Karinsk's building.

The woman saw Maria's Hermès bag and her Prada shoes as an indicator that she had more than enough money to buy an unit and happily showed her the place.

" So why don't you tell me something about your little building?" Maria tried to learn more about the place.

"Well, I think you'll find that not only are the amenities top quality, so are the tenants."

"That's good to hear. Yeah, because I'm not just looking at buying square footage, but really put down some roots." Maria caressed her flat stomach with a fake found smile.

"Congratulations! Well, that is such the right way to look at it. Your husband would love this place's view."

" He recently died, but at least he didn't leave me alone. I'm carring a piece of him forever." Maria corrected her with a sad expression on her face.

" I'm so sorry." The woman said with a small smile, felling pity for a pregnant woman.

" It's alright. His life insurance left me enough money to live more than comfortably with our baby, he was so thoughtful. But ever since he died, I've been feeling paranoid, must be the pregnancy, Are there any other tenants who've been here for a while, you know, who might be able to show us the ins and outs of the place, the neighborhood?" Maria asked using 'us' as a reference to her fake fetus.

"Well, the building was totally renovated two years ago, so most of our tenants are newer. We only reopened in January." The sales woman told her.

"Oh." She made a crestfallen expression.

"But I think there are some of the old tenants who bought in." The woman told him and Maria smile, knowing that she hit the jackpot, no one would deny anything to a sad and pregnant widow.

"You think that I might be able to speak to them? Just to be sure. It would really make me feel more comfortable, knowing the kind of neighbors that my beloved baby will have."

At night, Maria came back to Harvey's place but he asked Donna to tell her that he would get home later than the usual.

She organized the information about each old tenant of Karinsk and the pictures of their old places to contact them and arrange a meeting as soon as possible. Things were looking good for her, finally.

About two hours later than usual, Harvey came home and found Maria on the office's floor with tons of files around her while she ate some Chinese food and read. She looked up at Harvey with a tired smile and he leaned down to see her face.

" Hey." He said with a soft voice and a smile before kissing her.

" Hi. Hmm, scotch, it's a great taste on you." Maria said with a small smile" I asked for some Chinese for you, it's in the counter. In case you haven't eaten anything."

" Thanks, I'm famished. I had to follow Jessica into a bar, Quentin has ALS."

" Merda, how's Jessica dealing with it ?"

" She had at least 5 shots of pure scotch." Harvey told Maria.

" Damn, it's understandable, her ex husband is dying. He may be an ex but someday she loved him enough to marry him."

" Yeah. At least it's good for the case."

" My god, you have no heart."

" I do have a heart. But I also have a case that needs cold and hard facts." Harvey told her from the kitchen.

" I'd have loser's sex with you since we both lost today but I'm so damn busy."

" Have you drank these ?" Harvey commented at the two empty cans of energy drink that he found inside of the trash can when he opened it.

" Yep. My heart is beating like I'm a rabbit and I am really focused."

" You know that it's not healthy."

" I know. Plus, my family history is shit when it comes to cardiac issues. But I can't sleep right now. I think I can feel bed bugs crawling on my skin."

" Why are you on the floor, you could use the office."

" Your chair is too comfortable, I may fall asleep and I can't sleep before I fix this crap."

" Want some silent company ? I need to fix my case either. We're talking with Lisa tomorrow and Jessica decided to take the case."

" Wish I could be there to see it. Jessica smashing her but being to classy for actually smash her." Maria smirked and went back to work.

They were working in silence, Harvey sitting by the desk and Maria on the floor near it. It felt good for both of them the feeling of having company even to do something that required them to be quiet and alone, from time to time Harvey looked at her just to make sure that she was real and that she was really there by his side even when they were doing something boring like working.

Harvey finished his work before Maria and left to take a shower before going to bed. It was one thing that Maria's presence got him used to, taking at least 3 showers a day. Brazilians usually take tons of showers and Maria was crazy about showering before going to bed or coming home from work.

" Come on, let's go sleep." Harvey called her. He just had a towel wrapped around his waist.

" I'm sorry but some annoying attorney said that I needed more clients to beat Tanaka." Maria commented with a small smile and gestured for him to help her up " But I can take a 30 minutes break. Pomodoro technique and all that jazz."

" You've been working nonstop since you arrived home, it's not pomodoro technique." Harvey pointed out. He got dressed into his pajamas and went to bed.

" You want 30 minutes of my time or not? My attention is something very precious, you should cherish every single second of it." Maria smirked and laid down by his side.

" Honey, I make a thousand dollars each hour spent representing somebody." Harvey's arms enveloped her and they were now spooning while Harvey caressed her head.

" We, lawyers, are a bunch of overpaid prostitutes that happened to study a little bit more than a common hooker." Maria commented and Harvey had to laugh at her comment.

" We even have faithful clients that love our services. And the way we dress completely indicate that we're lawyers."

" You're always wearing a suit. You could be an italian mafia boss."

" Excuse me ? I could totally be 007."

" David Niven, maybe. Pierce Brosnan, never." Maria smirked.

" I could beat Brosnan's bond."

" Yep. And I could beat Liz Taylor's Cleopatra." Maria said sarcastically.

" You could."

" I know. But I need to be humble so the less beautiful people won't feel humiliated. " Maria commented playfully. Harvey realized that her voice sounded faster than usual.

" Your heartbeat is around 120 bpm. You're crazy for drinking so much energy drinks."

" I'm fine. I think. My mind is racing and I keep feeling bedbugs on me." Maria commented wide eyed.

" There's no bedbugs here for the tenth time." Harvey rolled his eyes and held her more tightly.

Maria couldn't sleep even if she wanted, the energy drinks did a number on her. But she realized that Harvey feel asleep less than 10 minutes since they stopped talking. She carefully untangled herself from him and went back to work.

Around 4:30am, Harvey woke up alone and realized that Maria was still working. He went to the office and found her on the floor, in the middle of tons of files almost dozing while reading something.

" Hello."

"Oh. Hey" Maria said startled, almost forcing her eyes open.

" Come to bed."

" I have to take a shower before going to sleep." Maria commented " I'm almost finished."

" You're barely paying attention to what you're doing, it's useless doing it in your tired state and it's wasting the time that you could use to sleep to be well disposed tomorrow and work more. Come on." Harvey called her again.

" Okay." Maria agreed and put a hand up, asking for his help to get up.

Instead of simply helping her up, Harvey took her in his arms and took her to his, now their (since she would move in with him soon), room. He gently laid her down on the bed and embraced her, falling asleep again.

In the morning, Harvey woke up before Maria did and went to the kitchen to prepare something for them to eat. He would wake her up a little later than usual since she slept very late.

He made some healthy banana pancakes for them and prepared his coffee and her tea. He woke Maria up, knowing that she would take quite some time to get dressed and ready for the time.

"Good morning." Harvey gently woke her up.

" Morning." Maria muttered with a tired voice. Her hair was a mess and her eyes were almost closed but he still found her the most beautiful woman that he'd ever seen.

" I made breakfast."

" A guy who knows how to cook is something so dreamy." Maria commented playfully.

They ate their breakfast togheter and left for work. Harvey had to go to Quentin's firm to ask Lisa some questions and Maria went to the firm to gather some of Karinsk's old tenants.

Maria filled a conference room with some of Karinsk's tenants that happened to have the same issues as Frank before they were forced to move out of their places. She asked for Rachel's help to receive them there before start their meeting.

Harvey was looking for her everywhere to talk about the news on Quentin's case and decide to call her.

"Maria, we got work to do, where are you?" Harvey asked on the phone almost singing it "Oh, I'm looking at you right now in conference room c."

" Excuse me for a second." Maria said politely after seeing Harvey looking at her from behind the glass doors.

" AA meeting? Here in the office ?"

" Haha, funny. Nope, it's my lawsuit. Between Frank's building and the one I'm about to buy into. Oh, and I'm pregnant." Maria commented playfully, remembering how she got the info about so many old tenants of Karinsk.

" What?" Harvey paled at the last part of her sentence.

" Calm down, it's not yours. It's from my deceased husband who left me a huge sum of money from his life insurance. Long story that I didn't have time to tell you yesterday while I worked to track down 15 former tenants who are willing to testify to all manner of harassment that forced them out of their apartments."

" You did this overnight? Yesterday, on the floor ?" Harvey asked her, he was surprised that she could do so much in such a short amount of time. He also felt proud at her for doing so much on her first official solo case.

" Yep, with the help of 4 energy drinks. I drank more after you feel asleep. I got so many stories and facts that will smash Tanaka."

" It's good work, keep at it. I'm gonna do what I gotta do."

" Bye." Maria went back to the conference room and noticed that the carpet in one photo attached to a file was exactly like Frank's bedbug infested carpet.

Maria asked the person who used to live in the place with the carpet that looked like Frank's what was wrong with the apartment and the answer was the same: bedbugs. She also remembered that Karinsk didn't get in the place and refuse to even step a foot at the damned carpet.

" Rachel, I gotta go carpet shopping." Maria showed the photo to her friend.

Maria searched for the carpet installer responsible for installing the carpet full of bedbugs in Frank's place and asked him to testify that Karinks paid him to install that into Frank's place. With that testimony she knew that she was ready to get her sweet revenge from Karinsk and Tanaka.

Maria saw Harvey walking back to his office just like a champion and she knew that he successfully managed to settle Quentin's case. It looked like she would also get some taste of victory herself.

" Hi, Donna. Can I ?" Maria made a gesture to Harvey's office.

" Yeah, just go." Donna said with a small smirk and winked at her.

"Thanks." Maria thanked the red haired secretary and went to Harvey's office.

" You look like you just won the Super Bowl." Maria smirked at Harvey and sat down in a chair.

" I feel better than that."

" I know how much you love spectator's sports. Wanna watch rookie league in action ?" Maria asked him with a small smile " I am ready to get my sweet revenge on Karinsk and Tanaka."

" Wouldn't miss it for the world." Harvey said, getting up " When ?"

" Now. Let's go. I just need to get something." She went to her cubicle with Harvey following her and put on gloves to hold a huge black sack " You just have to sit back and watch."

Maria called Karink and Tanaka for a meeting at Karinsk's place to talk about her case. Harvey and her arrived quickly. She went up to Karinsk's while Harvey looked for a parking spot. Since she left the car first, it looked like she was all by herself carring a black sack.

" Ah, you brought a sack lunch. We would have shared." Tanaka mocked her black sack.

" Amusing." Maria said sarcastically.

" As was this, your little lawsuit." Tanaka mocked her again and she simply smiled tightly to control her building anger.

"Take your sack of presents and run, kid. You're in way over your head." Karinsk also mocked her. Being mocked by a lawyer was one thing, being mocked by some weird guy who looked like a pimp was the last straw.

'Oh, I think she'll be just fine. Hello, Vivien." Harvey entered the room and rested his feet on the coffee table.

"Hello. So the rookie called in the veteran. A little girl waiting for superman waiting to be rescued." Vivien commented.

" No, no, I'm just here to watch. I love spectator sports." Harvey commented with a small smile.

" You enjoy watching the Yankees destroy a little league team?

"David and goliath happens to be one of my favorite stories." Harvey answered the experienced attorney.

"Okay, I'll bite. What's in the bag?" Vivien asked Maria, who held the bag with two fingers because she was disgusted by it's contents.

Maria opened the sack and laid the carpet that came out of it on Karinsk's beautiful decorative mat. Before getting away from it quickly.

" Hey, hey, what're you doing?" Karinsk got up from the couch angry after he recognized the carpet.

"Oh, do you recognize this carpet?" Maria asked innocently, batting her eyes.

"Make her get that out of here." Karinsk told Vivan.

"This is your own carpet, Mr. Karinski. It's from Frank Carvello's apartment. Come on. Feel the fibers, the texture, it's almost alive. Almost as soft as pubic hairs." Maria commented sarcastically.

"You brought bedbugs in here." Frank exclaimed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's vandalism, assault." Vivian Tanaka pointed it out for Maria.

"You know, I'm happy that you put it that way, because that's what we're gonna be charging your client with." Maria said with a victorious smile.

"What are you talking about?" Vivan asked her.

"He didn't just fail to eradicate a bedbug infestation, he actually created one. Yeah, he pulled the carpet from one of his old buildings. Carpet that was already infested, and then he reinstalled it in my client's apartment to drive him out." The younger attorney retold the tale.

"That's crazy." Karinsk tried to ran away from his guilt in the matter.

"You might wanna warn your client about perjury. We've got sworn testimony from the installer. And a picture of the same carpet from one of his old buildings before it was renovated. By the way, I really love what you've done with the place. So it looks like we're talking about, what? Assault, violations of rental codes, health codes, and you know, just basic codes of human decency. This ugly old carpet alone should be considered a fashion crime that kills interior designers." Maria muttered sarcastically.

"And if a jury in New York heard all that, wow, imagine the damages." Harvey commented with a huge smile, impressed at Maria's cunning way of thinking.

"Harvey Specter... Spectate, please." Maria played with he similarity of his name and the word 'spectate' and Harvey playfully put his hands up in a small sign of surrendering.

"Just get that carpet out of here." Karinsk ordered Maria.

"So, Vivien... How am I doing for my first time? This still counts as my first time, doesn't it? Because it does feels like the very first time. As that famous intellectual philosopher,Madonna, would say: like a virgin." Maria taunted "Now let's talk about how much this is going to cost you." She simply crossed her legs professionally and ate provocatively ate one of the strawberries that were being served.

Harvey was impressed at how amazing and smart she was and couldn't feel prouder if he tried but the way she provocatively bit the strawberry was almost too much for him to handle, she was a very strong woman and it made him fall for her harder than ever.

Back at the firm, Maria went back to work and when it was almost time to leave she decided to pay Louis a little visit. She knocked on his glass door and Louis let her in.

"Just thought you'd like to know, your case, the pro bono... I won." Maria taunted the partner and gave him a file.

"How exciting for you. But like I said, it's just a pro bono case, it's not gonna help your career." Louis belittled her accomplishment.

" I did also manage to sign 15 new clients who are all suing for the same harassment, and they will be paying. So you can multiply this number... Times 15. That's not bad for rookie league." Maria commented with a smirk and left his office, leaving behind a bewildered Litt.

She went to the lobby, where Harvey discreetly expected for her and entered the elevator with him.

" Now I understand why you enjoy mocking him so damn much. It's fun and I have to admit that he deserves every single second of it." Maria said with a smile.

" Don't be jealous. I used to sent him flowers every single day." Harvey told Maria with a big smile.

" Que?"

" He's allergic to flowers." Harvey said with a boyish grin and Maria laughed.

" I'm taking you out tonight, Mr. Specter. And I won't accept a no for answer. We have to celebrate."

" I already asked Donna to make the reservations today. "

" Mr. Specter, you never cease to amaze me. It's like you're reading my thoughts." Maria said with a smile.

" I am, you're thinking about how lucky you are for having met the hottest, smartest and best attorney of New York." Harvey commented and opened his car's door for her before getting into the driver's seat, he gave Ray the day off.

" I'm very grateful for having met Jessica, indeed." Maria joked " I am choosing the music."

" Noooo." Harvey said playfully.

" I'm picking something to please both of us, picky listeners." Maria muttered while going through his CD collection "How do you feel about brazilian music ? Answer carefully because this will define our whole relationship."

" I have to admit that I don't know a lot about it but I do enjoy it. Girl From Ipanema is nice. Teach me more about it later ?"

" Great. Because I have some with me right now." Maria grabbed a CD from her bag and choose it " This isn't an specific album " This little guy has the most known Bossa Nova songs."

" Bossa Nova?"

" Gosh, your Portuguese pronunciation is cute. It's a Brazilian genre. The name means "new trend". Joachim Ernst Berendt, said that bossa nova is a combination of samba and cool jazz. The influence on bossa nova of jazz styles is often debated, but a similar "cool sensibility" is apparent. It also has some specks of a very gentle and slow samba." Maria told him " I choose it because you enjoy jass' rhythm"

" You convinced me."

" This is Girl From Ipanema in Portuguese. Garota de Ipanema. The translation changed the whole song but kept the general meaning and rhythm. The literal translation is amazing."

" I'm enjoying it a lot but I can't understand a single thing of what they're saying."

" I will translate everything to you laters. But just sit back and enjoy."

" Yes, ma'am." Harvey commented playfully at her bossy tone.

They had the chance of listening two songs before they arrived at their final location, a very expensive restaurant.

" Good evening." Harvey and Maria greeted the hostess. And she showed them in a table for two located near a piano. Harvey pulled the chair for Maria and sat down afterwards.

" Champagne or wine?" Harvey asked Maria.

" I'm fine with whatever you fell up to. I only care about the dessert." Maria said another one of her sly innuendoes. And Harvey could easily picture her saying this before seductively yet elegantly taking a sip of her wine glass.

" Wine then." Harvey told her with a smirk.

Harvey asked for their wine and the waiter promptly came with their chosen beverage and poured it for them both.

" You look like you're undressing me with you eyes."

" I am."

" Great. Because I'm not wearing panties."

" Maria Martin, don't joke like this right now. Unless you want us to either give them a show or go back home before even eating."

" Is it supposed to make me stop teasing you, because this threat of yours is exactly what I'm aiming for."

" You know I'm always up for a are a pair of pervs unable to keep sexual innuendos for ourselves." Harvey muttered.

" A match made in haven. Maybe not heaven since it's quite sinful. What do we toast for ?"

" Us." Harvey told her before they toasted.

" It's weird."

" What?"

" Mike, Jessica, Donna, Louis and a huge number of associates always say that you are very unfeeling and cold, even romantically. "

" Usually I am."

" You are a total sap, you are very emotionally mature and always ready to have talks that usually would make a cold person very uncomfortable. Why?"

" You're different."

" I will break this glass in your head if you say the 'you're not like the others' crap."

" See? I was about to spill my heart out and you threatened to kill me. It's not like the 'not like the other girls' crap. It's about you and me, you're everything that I'm not and at the same time you're a lot like me." Harvey saw her confused look " Your mere presence feels different from everyone else's. Everyone being people that I like: Donna, Jessica, Mike... You make me feel like I'm home, like I'm not alone."

" I get it. When I came here from Brazil I suffered a lot, I was very attached to my parents and I cried almost every single day. I made very good friends here in Brazil but I've never felt so complete like when I'm with you. That's why I agreed to move in with you after knowing you for 3 months." Maria said with a huge smile and caressed his hand.

" Good." Harvey said with a big smile that made Maria's heart melt.

" I love when we have those serious and heartfelt conversations. It sounds so grown up and serious. Never had a relationship like this before."

" Neither have I. Though I did date tons of women, nothing as serious as moving in ever happened. "

" Tons of women?" Maria asked with a raised eyebrow and Harvey made an amused face at her jealousy " It's okay, during Law school I dated half the guys from class."

" Oi? I only dated one girl through law school." Harvey was the jealous one now.

" Now you're lying. You may have dated one but I'm sure you banged at least a dozen." Maria pointed out.

" I did."

" Who was the one you dated?"

" Scottie."

" Stripper's name." Maria commented.

" It's a nickname."

" You never gave me a nickname."

" You're not jealous of a nickname, are you? Your name is hot and latin, why would a shorten it? I never had a nickname myself."

" Harv?" Maria asked and he shot her a fake annoyed look.

" I hate being called Harv. Saying 'Harvey' isn't so damn hard to the point of skipping the EY"

" I hate being called Mary, it's the American version of my name but I'm not american."

And they spent the night on their dinner date before going back home. Yeah, now Harvey's place was home for both of them and if actually felt good. Harvey thought Thatcher would be completely terrified of taking a step like this with someone, but Maria made it very easy and happy, he never thought that he could be happier than he felt when he got home with her by his side after a long working day.


End file.
